Her face began to scorch. She went out on the porch and called again, mechanically; some water dripping from the eaves on her bare head ran down one blazing cheek; the coolness gave her an acute sense of relief that struggled through the medley of tearing emotions; she was saying to herself: "Where can she be? She hasn't washed the dishes! (_He refused me._)" Howard, holding the lamp over his head, came up behind her and went down the steps into the mist. Fred followed him, Zip lumbering along at her heels. "She must have left the house this way; we know that," she said. "Come down to the beach," he said. "Yes; sometimes she used to sit on that big rock," Frederica remembered. He walked ahead of her; the light, shining through the solferino lamp-shade, made a rosy nimbus about his bare head, but scarcely penetrated the fog. They went thus, all three, single file, along the path to the rickety wooden pier; at the end of it, they stood staring out into the mist. Twice he called, loudly, "_Flora!_"... "Not a sound!" he said. "Is there any possible place in the house where she could have hidden herself? I mean, gone to sleep, or anything?" "Not a place! I've looked everywhere. (_He refused me._)" They turned silently to go back. Just as they reached the path again Howard stopped--so abruptly that the lamp sent a jarring gleam into the white darkness. "_Fred--?_" She looked where he was looking, and caught her breath. "No!" she said; "oh, no--no! It can't be!" "Hold the lamp. I'll go and see--" He climbed down the little bluff and waded into the sedge. The swaying mass that had looked like a stone until a larger wave stirred it, came in nearer the shore, caught on the shoaling beach, rolled, and was still. Frederica saw him bend over it, then try, frantically, to lift it in his arms. She put the lamp on the wharf. ("Don't touch it, Zip!"), slid, catching at tufts of grass, and bending branches--down the crumbling bank, plunged into the water up to her knees, and together, half pulling, half carrying that sodden bundle, they stumbled over the oozy bottom and through the sedges. The lifting it up the bluff was terrible; the dripping figure, sagging and bending, was so heavy! "We must get her into the house," Frederica panted. And, somehow or other, they did it, Howard taking the shoulders, and Fred the feet. They were gasping with the strain of it when they laid her on the floor of the living-room. "Is she dead?" he said. Frederica thrust her hand into the bosom of Flora's dress--and held her breath. "I can't tell; we mustn't stop to find out! You know what to do? Pull her arms up, this way!" They stood over her, Howard following Fred's short, sharp directions, and, even in the horror of the moment, conscious of a wondering admiration at her efficiency. But no quiver of life came into the still face. "We ought to get a doctor!" Fred said, at last, panting. "I'll go instantly!"