“Biddy!  Biddy! what does all this mean?  Where is Mrs. Sharpe?”

“The Lord only knows what it manes, or where is Mrs. Sharpe,” said Biddy, sullenly.  “It’s high time, in me own belafe, for her husband to come ashkin’ and inquirin’ her close all in a hape on the floor upstairs, with her bath-dress gone from the nails, and the front door swingin’,—­me never findin’ of it out till it cooms tay-time, with all the children cryin’ on me, and me head shplit with the noise, and—­”

Dr. Sharpe strode in a bewildered way to the front door.  Oddly enough, the first thing he did was to take down the thermometer and look at it.  Gone out to bathe in a temperature like that!  His mind ran like lightning, while he hung the thing back upon its nail, over Harrie’s ancestry.  Was there not a traditionary great-uncle who died in an asylum?  The whole future of three children with an insane mother spread itself out before him while he was buttoning his overcoat.

“Shall I go and help you find her?” asked Miss Dallas, tremulously; “or shall I stay and look after hot flannels and—­things?  What shall I do?”

“I don’t care what you do!” said the Doctor, savagely.  To his justice be it recorded that he did not.  He would not have exchanged one glimpse of Harrie’s little homely face just then for an eternity of sunset-sailing with the “friend of his soul.”  A sudden cold loathing of her possessed him; he hated the sound of her soft voice; he hated the rustle of her garments, as she leaned against the door with her handkerchief at her eyes.  Did he remember at that moment an old vow, spoken on an old October day, to that little missing face?  Did he comfort himself thus, as he stepped out into the storm, “You have ‘trusted her,’ Myron Sharpe, as ‘your best earthly friend’”?

As luck, or providence or God—­whichever word you prefer—­decreed it, the Doctor had but just shut the door when he saw me driving from the station through the rain.  I heard enough of the story while he was helping me down the carriage steps.  I left my bonnet and bag with Miss Dallas, pulled my water-proof over my head, and we turned our faces to the sea without a word.

The Doctor is a man who thinks and acts rapidly in emergencies, and little time was lost about help and lights.  Yet when all was done which could be done, we stood there upon the slippery weed-strewn sand, and looked in one another’s faces helplessly.  Harrie’s little boat was gone.  The sea thundered out beyond the bar.  The fog hung, a dead weight, upon a buried world.  Our lanterns cut it for a foot or two in a ghostly way, throwing a pale white light back upon our faces and the weeds and bits of wreck under our feet.

The tide had turned.  We put out into the surf not knowing what else to do, and called for Harrie; we leaned on our oars to listen, and heard the water drip into the boat, and the dull thunder beyond the bar; we called again, and heard a frightened sea-gull scream.