She fought and struggled because instinct
compelled her; but at her heart was the awful knowledge that the sea had
claimed her and she could not possibly escape.
She made for the farther point of the bay, though she knew she could not
reach it in time. The loose shingle crumbled about her feet; the seaweed
trapped her everywhere. She fell a dozen times in that awful race, and
each time she rose in agony and tore on. The tumult all about her was
like the laughter of fiends. She felt as if hell had opened its mouth,
and she, poor soul, was its easy prey.
There came a moment at last when she tripped and fell headlong, and
could not rise again. That moment was the culmination of her anguish.
Neither soul nor body could endure more. Darkness--a howling, unholy
darkness--came down upon her in a thick cloud from which there was no
escape. She made a futile, convulsive effort to pray, and lost
consciousness in the act.
* * * * *
Out of the darkness at length she came.
The tumult was still audible, but it was farther away, less
overwhelming. She opened her eyes in a strange, unnatural twilight, and
stared vaguely upwards.
At the same instant she became aware of some one at her side, bending
over her--a man whose face, revealed to her in the dim light, sent a
throb of wonder through her heart.
"You!" she said, speaking with a great effort.
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