Page:An Evening at Lucy Ashton’s.pdf/10

254 in the air, and cast a darkness like that of night upon the rapid waters, which hurried on as if they distrusted their gloomy passage. At this moment Bertha's eye caught the ghastly paleness of her husband's face, terribly distinct: she thought that he feared the rough torrent, and for her sake; tenderly she leant towards him—his arm grasped her waist, but not in love; he seized the wretched girl and flung her overboard, with the very name of God upon her lips, and appealing, too, for his sake! Twice her bright head—Bertha had ever gloried in her sunny curls, which now fell in wild profusion on her shoulders—twice did it emerge from the wave; her faint hands were spread abroad for help; he shrunk from the last glare of her despairing eyes; then a low moan; a few bubbles of foam rose on the stream; and all was still—but it was the stillness of death. An instant after, the thunder-cloud burst above, the peal reverberated from cliff to cliff, the lightning clave the black depths of the stream, the billows rose in tumultuous eddies; but Count Ludolf's boat cut its way through, and the vessel arrived at the open river. No trace was there of storm; the dewy wild flowers filled the air with their fragrance; and the Moon shone over them pure and clear, as if her light had no sympathy with human sorrow, and shuddered not at human crime. And why should she? We might judge her by ourselves; what care we for crime in which we are not involved, and for suffering in which we have no part?