Chapter XVIII: Rescued

“Fate is above us all,” has been aptly written by the poet. Our hapless young heroine found it true in her own case.

It was not destined that the spark of her life should go out in the black waters into which she had hurled herself in a very desperation of despair.

In her excitement she had not observed that Marmaduke Cameron’s yacht, the Sea Bird, lay at anchor near the spot where she had sprung into the water. But it was there, and through the gloom and darkness a pair of horrified eyes had witnessed from the deck her desperate plunge into the sea.

Rendered unconscious by the shock of her rapid descent into the deep, cold waves, Nina’s body rose to the surface again. In the meantime a little boat had been hastily lowered from the yacht and a man had gone to her assistance. When she was about sinking again into the water friendly hands reached out to save her, she was drawn into the little boat and thence conveyed to the yacht.

We will leave her there a little while and look forward a few hours in the progress of our story.

To do so we must give our readers a peep into the interior of a charming little birds’-nest of a cottage in the city of Baltimore.

It is early hours for calling, for the gray dawn-light of the new day is just beginning to glimmer in the east, but our hostess is not a fashionable lady. She is just a darling little busy bee who rises with the sun and whatsoever her hand findeth to do does it with all her might.

So, peeping into her pretty, simple chamber, we find her already up and dressed and drawing back the curtains to admit the cold, gray light of the new day, while she murmurs to herself with a pleased smile on her gentle womanly face:

“I shall have a whole long day to myself while Arthur is away, and I shall not do one bit of cooking, I shall just lunch on bread and cheese, and I can do ever-so-much sewing for baby if she will only be good and lie in her cradle!”

And even as she utters the words she is startled by the sound of wheels, grating

“Low on the sand and loud on the stone,”

--wheels that stop deliberately before her very door.

She gives a little, startled exclamation, pushes up the sash, throws open the blind, and looks out.

It is a small, simple brougham with a pretty bay horse that greets her sight, but her gentle face grows radiant with pleasure, and forgetting her self-gratulations a moment ago, she cries out joyously:

“It is Arthur, home before I expected him. Oh, how glad I am!” and she flies down the steps two at a time to open the door.

Her big gray eyes grow round and bright with dismay and wonder as she sees her tall, strong husband alighting from his brougham with a drooping black-robed figure in his arms.

“Oh, Doctor, you have brought a patient home,” she exclaims, holding the door wide for him to enter with his burden.

“Yes,” he answers. “Have you a fire any where in the house, Minnie?”

She answers “Yes,” and leads the way to her own room, where every thing is in dainty order, the baby sleeping sweetly in its cradle, and a bright fire burning in the polished bars of the grate.

Doctor Fielding advanced without the least hesitation and laid the motionless form he carried down upon the smooth white bed. Then he stooped and pressed a tender kiss on his wife’s lips as he said, fondly:

“You and baby have been well, Minnie?”

“Oh, yes, thank you, but we have missed you sadly. We did not expect you home so soon.”

“I had good reason for coming,” he replied, gravely, and he bent down and gently removed the close dark hood that completely hid the face of his mysterious patient. As he did so a mass of damp golden hair fell in disheveled tresses over the pillow, and a pallid, lovely face was revealed, with delicately chiseled features, straight dark brows, and fringed black lashes lying heavily against a marble cheek.

A cry burst from Mrs. Fielding’s lips:

“It is Nina Strangemore! Oh, Arthur, what does it mean? Do not tell me she is dead!”