up before me.

Pallid and wild with the agony of that swift plunge, it confronted me.
No cry for help parted the pale lips, but those wide eyes were luminous
with a love whose fire that deathful river could not quench.

Like one in an awful dream, I gazed till the ripples closed above it.
One instant the terror held me,--the next I was far down in those waves,
so silver fair above, so black and terrible below. A brief, blind
struggle passed before I grasped a tress of that long hair, then an arm,
and then the white shape, with a clutch like death. As the dividing
waters gave us to the light again, Agnes flung herself far over the
boat-side and drew my lifeless burden in; I followed, and we laid it
down, a piteous sight for human eyes to look upon. Of that swift voyage
home I can remember nothing but the still face on Agnes's breast, the
sight of which nerved my dizzy brain and made my muscles iron.

For many weeks there was a darkened chamber in my house, and anxious
figures gliding to and fro, wan with long vigils and the fear of death.
I often crept in to look upon the little figure lying there, to watch
the feverish roses blooming on the wasted cheek, the fitful fire burning
in the unconscious eyes, to hear the broken words so full of pathos to
my ear, and then to steal away and struggle to forget.

My bird fluttered on the threshold of its cage, but Love lured it back,
for its gentle mission was not yet fulfilled.

The _child_ Effie lay dead beneath the ripples of the river, but the
_woman_ rose up from that bed of suffering like one consecrated to
life's high duties by the bitter baptism of that dark hour.