He began to stagger and pant.

“Let me walk, my angel,” said Grace.  “I’m not a baby.”

She held his hand tight, and tried to walk with him step by step.  Her white feet shone in the pale moonlight.

They made for rising ground, and were rewarded by finding the debris less massive.

“The flood must have been narrow hereabouts,” said Henry.  “We shall soon be clear of it, I hope.”

Soon after this, they came under a short but sturdy oak that had survived; and, entangled in its close and crooked branches, was something white.  They came nearer; it was a dead body:  some poor man or woman hurried from sleep to Eternity.

They shuddered and crawled on, still making for higher ground, but sore perplexed.

Presently they heard a sort of sigh.  They went toward it, and found a poor horse stuck at an angle; his efforts to escape being marred by a heavy stone to which he was haltered.

Henry patted him, and encouraged him, and sawed through his halter; then he struggled up, but Henry held him, and put Grace on him.  She sat across him and held on by the mane.

The horse, being left to himself, turned back a little, and crossed the quagmire till he got into a bridle-road, and this landed them high and dry on the turnpike.

Here they stopped, and, by one impulse, embraced each other, and thanked God for their wonderful escape.

But soon Henry’s exultation took a turn that shocked Grace’s religious sentiments, which recent acquaintance had strengthened.

“Yes,” he cried, “now I believe that God really does interpose in earthly things; I believe every thing; yesterday I believed nothing.  The one villain is swept away, and we two are miraculously saved.  Now we can marry to-morrow—­no, to-day, for it is past midnight.  Oh, how good He is, especially for killing that scoundrel out of our way.  Without his death, what was life worth to me?  But now—­oh, Heavens! is it all a dream?  Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”

“Oh, Henry, my love!” said Grace imploringly; “pray, pray do not offend Him, by rejoicing at such a moment over the death, perhaps the everlasting death, of a poor, sinful fellow-creature.”

“All right, dearest.  Only don’t let us descend to hypocrisy.  I thank Heaven he is dead, and so do you.”

“Pray don’t say so.”

“Well, I won’t:  let him go.  Death settles all accounts.  Did you see me stretch out my hand to save him?”

“I did, my angel, and it was like you:  you are the noblest and the greatest creature that ever was, or ever will be.”

“The silliest, you mean.  I wondered at myself next minute.  Fancy me being such an idiot as to hold out a hand to save him, and so wither both our lives—­yours and mine; but I suppose it is against nature not to hold out a hand.  Well, no harm came of it, thank Heaven.”

“Let us talk of ourselves,” said Grace, lovingly.  “My darling, let no harsh thought mar the joy of this hour.  You have saved my life again.  Well, then, it is doubly yours.  Here, looking on that death we have just escaped, I devote myself to you.  You don’t know how I love you; but you shall.  I adore you.”