Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/23

12 "He's unconscious yet, but breathing," some one whispered to him. "He'll pull through."

Floyd stood dazed with happiness, hearing nothing of the fine things that his clustering admirers were saying. Suddenly he broke away from them and ran, with but one thought, "I must tell Lydia Dunbar; she will be so glad." But the news had been spreading and was still spreading before him, faster than he could run; boys and men were speeding up the beach, and off through the woods. Floyd plunged into the woods path toward the Dunbar cottage, and came face to face with Lydia; she was hurrying back to learn if the word that some one had cried out to her was true. She looked at Floyd; her lips began to tremble, and there was the radiance of happy tears in her eyes. The hand that she gave Floyd was as cold as the sea.

"You will be a hero—always," she said.

She had pronounced Floyd's doom.