The two ladies waited to see him off, fretting inwardly at the delay of repairing a plank in the boat and fetching his mate.  It was a good substantial old tub, very different from the fairy canoe freighted with those precious human lives.  Then they returned to their weary watch in Cecil’s bird’s-nest of a room, which commanded the most extensive view of the lake.  Bluebell’s young eyes were the first to discern the tiny white bunting, and hope battled with suspense till they could be sure it was the sail they sought.  With the field glass they made out two forms.

“Cecil is safe!” cried Mrs. Rolleston, recognising her large, shady hat.  “But still,” she thought, “Bertie might be drowned, and Captain Lascelles bringing her home.  Oh, Bluebell! can you recognise him?” for the girl had the glasses.  They were very strong ones, and her vision keen.  A spasm passed over her face.

“Captain Du Meresq is quite safe,” said she, bitterly.  She had looked at the moment when Bertie stretched out his arm for Cecil’s hand, and was carrying it to his lips.

Mrs. Rolleston’s raptures were too oppressive just then.  Bluebell felt thankful to hear a slight disturbance, which betokened that the Colonel had returned.  His wife, quite unnerved by the transition from despair to joy, could conceal nothing, and, rushing down, poured into his ear all the dread and relief of the past hours.  The Colonel hearing it thus abruptly, and unsoftened by previous anxiety, only felt intense anger at Cecil’s having gone alone with these two men; and the danger and exposure to the storm that she had undergone aggravated the offence considerably.  He felt too strongly to say much to his wife, who, indeed, had suffered quite enough already; and the sting of it all—­his growing fear of Du Meresq’s influence over Cecil—­he was not disposed to confide to her.

“I have been too careless,” he reflected, “and I cannot trust Bella, who will never see a fault in her brother.  However, he will be gone to-morrow, and I will take care they never meet again till Cecil is married.”

Mrs. Rolleston, in the restless activity of a lightened heart, had hurried away to order large fires to be lit in their rooms, and hot cordials and everything imagination could suggest placed ready.  Indeed she racked her brains to remember what restoratives were usually applied to drowned persons.  Holding them up by the heels or not doing so (whichever it was), and hot blankets, were the only prescriptions she could recollect; and then the culprits themselves came in, looking particularly fresh and pleased with themselves.

Cecil she proposed instantly to consign to a warm bed, but the girl laughed her to scorn, and would not hear of being shelved in that manner; and, finally, they all came down to dinner, talkative from a delightful sense of reaction.  This superfluous effervescence, however, was soon flattened by the unsympathetic gloom of the head of the family.  It was very unlike his usual manner, and not a good augury, thought two of the party, who ascribed it to the right cause.