“Ugh!” he ejaculated, catching his breath and standing still as a fierce blast struck him.  Then, shaking himself like one trying to cast aside an impediment, he moved forward with quicker steps, and kept onward, for a distance of two or three blocks.  Here, in crossing a street, his foot struck against some obstruction which the snow had concealed, and he fell with his face downward.  It took some time for him to struggle to his feet again, and then he seemed to be in a state of complete bewilderment, for he started along one street, going for a short distance, and then crossing back and going in an opposite direction.  He was in no condition to get right after once going wrong.  With every few steps he would stop and look up and down the street and at the houses on each side vainly trying to make out his locality.

“Police!” he cried two or three times; but the faint, alarmed call reached no ear of nightly guardian.  Then, with a shiver as the storm swept down upon him more angrily, he started forward again, going he knew not whither.

The cold benumbed him; the snow choked and blinded him; fear and anxiety, so far as he was capable of feeling them, bewildered and oppressed him.  A helmless ship in storm and darkness was in no more pitiable condition than this poor lad.

On, on he went, falling sometimes, but struggling to his feet again and blindly moving forward.  All at once he came out from the narrow rows of houses and stood on the edge of what seemed a great white field that stretched away level as a floor.  Onward a few paces, and then—­Alas for the waiting mother at home!  She did not hear the cry of terror that cut the stormy air and lost itself in the louder shriek of the tempest as her son went over the treacherous line of snow and dropped, with a quick plunge, into the river, sinking instantly out of sight, for the tide was up and the ice broken and drifting close to the water’s edge.

CHAPTER II.

“Come, Fanny,” said Mr. Wilmer Voss, speaking to his wife, “you must get to bed.  It is past twelve o’clock, and you cannot bear this loss of rest and sleep.  It may throw you all back again.”

The woman addressed was sitting in a large easychair with a shawl drawn closely about her person.  She had the pale, shrunken face and large, bright eyes of a confirmed invalid.  Once very beautiful, she yet retained a sweetness of expression which gave a tenderness and charm to every wasted feature.  You saw at a glance the cultured woman and the patient sufferer.

As her husband spoke a fierce blast of wind drove the fine sand-like snow against the windows, and then went shrieking and roaring away over housetops, gables and chimneys.

“Oh what a dreadful night!” said the lady, leaning forward in her chair and listening to the wild wail of the storm, while a look of anxiety, mingled with dread, swept across her face.  “If Archie were only at home!”