Chapter XXVII: The Might-Have-Been

“Dear Mrs. Warren, what has happened? Why am I lying here in bed?” murmured Maisie, opening her heavy eyes in wonder, and half-lifting her golden head from the soft pillow where it rested.

“There, now, you are not to ask any questions yet, dear,” returned the lady fondly; but presently Maisie remembered of herself, and cried in a tone of horror:

“Oh!”

“Don’t think of it, dear,” was the soothing reply; but the girl shuddered and moaned:

“Oh, how can I help it? I thought I was drowning. I sank deep down into the blue water with a dazed feeling and consciousness left me; I shall never forget my awful sensations!”

“Poor darling! no wonder! Nor can I ever forget my own feelings of horror and despair when I saw the two boats colliding, and all those helpless women thrown out into the water! I cried out in anguish, and Mr. Warren would have gone to your assistance had not another sprung into the water before him--a splendid hero whom I could have hugged and kissed when he dived down into the water and brought you back to the surface.”

Maisie’s eyes were big with inquiry, and the lady added smilingly:

“I suppose you can almost guess the name of your rescuer?”

A faint blush tinted the pale cheek. The girl faltered:

“Could it have been--Mr. Barrington?”

“You are a good guesser, my dear, but then, of course, I gave you a hint. Yes, it was Byrd Barrington.”

Maisie flushed and paled, whispering half to herself:

“Yet the last time we met I told him I hated him, and vowed to be revenged because he would not accede to my demands! What a noble return!”

“Noble and heroic, though of course he could not know it was you he saved--not that I think it would have deterred him. On the contrary, he would more likely have been that much more anxious. He has called twice since yesterday to ask about you,” exclaimed Mrs. Warren.

“Since yesterday?” Maisie cried, in surprise.

“Yes, it was yesterday that the accident happened, and you have only just recovered consciousness. You see, when you fell into the water you got a blow on the head from the keel of the overturning boat. It stunned you, and you sank immediately--never to rise again, perhaps, had not Barrington dived for you so quickly, bringing you safely to shore.”

“And--the others?” cried the girl eagerly.

“They all were saved--except one! That fat old woman, Mrs. Warner, you know. Her body has not even been recovered yet. It was a mercy any of them were saved, there was such a scene of confusion! So many men jumped into the water that it almost seemed like they hindered more than they helped. But they were awfully brave, and very soon had all the women out, except, as I said, Mrs. Warner. She sank like a stone, and never came to the surface again. Must have got struck on the head like you did. Oh, Violet, what a scene of excitement! If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget it. There were so many boats, and all rowing so quickly to the scene of the accident, made the water so rough, it was harder for the rescuing men! And the shrieks of everybody--the poor drowning ones, the women in the boats, and the ones on the shore, they seem to ring in my ears even now!” concluded Mrs. Warren, shuddering at the very recollection.

Maisie shut her eyes again, and lay quietly thinking how narrowly she had escaped death, and how strange it was to owe her very life to Byrd Barrington--strange and sweet.

And yet of how much value was life after all, spent away from him whom she had learned to love so dearly?

A long, long sigh breathed over her lips, and Mrs. Warren exclaimed, with ready sympathy:

“You are thinking, dear, of how embarrassing it must be to have to meet him and thank him for saving your life; but I have made the rôle of Violet Summers as easy for you as possible.”

The beautiful eyes opened with a questioning glance, and she added:

“Mr. Barrington showed so much curiosity over you that I diverted any possible suspicion by telling him we were actresses, and that you had been with my company a long, long time. He asked some leading questions, but I was quite clever enough to throw him off the scent, though he said to me quite sadly:

“‘I am painfully interested in the girl whose life I saved. She is the perfect counterpart of one I loved, now long since dead.’”

Again a passionate sigh from the listener, who realized more and more the terrible mistake she had made in staying away so long from Castellane. The might-have-been quivered like a sword-point in her heart.

She said mournfully:

“We must not meet again, as long as I can postpone it. It will be too painful for me to meet him, with Josephine between us!”

“Yet you must not seem ungrateful, dear.”

“No, no; I would not wish it; but I can keep my room several days yet, while I am getting my courage to the point of an interview.”

“Yes; there could be nothing strange in that,” agreed her friend. So when Barrington called again that day he was told that she had recovered consciousness, but was so prostrated from the shock as to be still confined to her bed.

Thus affairs progressed for several days.