Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,--to overcome the creeping sick sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness off;--he looked up at the sky--and was met by a blinding flash which tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire in the centre of the blackness--and at this he made some inarticulate sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood amazed, and shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not conscious of his canine friend's distress. Another pang, cruel and prolonged, convulsed him,--a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward, slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap on the ground,--involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man might do among great waves overwhelming him,--and so went down--down!--into silence and unconsciousness. CHAPTER XII The storm raged till sunset; and then exhausted by its own stress of fury, began to roll away in angry sobs across the sea. The wind sank suddenly; the rain as suddenly ceased. A wonderful flush of burning orange light cut the sky asunder, spreading gradually upward and paling into fairest rose. The sullen clouds caught brightness at their summits, and took upon themselves the semblance of Alpine heights touched by the mystic glory of the dawn, and a clear silver radiance flashed across the ocean for a second and then vanished, as though a flaming torch had just flared up to show the troublous heaving of the waters, and had then been instantly quenched. As the evening came on the weather steadily cleared;--and presently a pure, calm, dark-blue expanse of ether stretched balmily across the whole width of the waves, with the evening star--the Star of Love--glimmering faintly aloft like a delicate jewel hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the "coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,--and when David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her arms,--and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious state he fancied he must be wandering somewhere through heaven if the stars were so near. He tried to speak--to move,--but was checked by a gentle pressure of the protecting arms about him. "Better now, dearie?" murmured a low anxious voice. "That's right! Don't try to get up just yet--take time! Let the strength come back to you first!"