Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/56

46 him back. He loosed one hand, and tried to push it from him in vain; he thrust his hand into his pocket—the thing was tearing the flesh from his ribs, it was pressing the breath from him, he was mad, dying. He drew forth his penknife and hacked at it. He was free! In a moment he had scaled the wire and stood in safety on the shore. What had he done with his wife? The rope round his chest was cut, he looked into the river, and his soul died within him.

"That was she—whirling and turning, beaten by the passing timbers, half drowned in the waters—the woman he loved. Her white face was raised to his. He could hear her screaming down there in the shadows, her pretty curls all gone, the red cheeks so pale, the parted lips washed over by the tide. And he had done this thing to his beloved.

"What had he done—he who would not have hurt her for all the stars in the heavens? Did she know what he had done?

"He was running along the bank nearest to the spot where the waters had swept her. She had clung to a mass of wood that had got wedged in the middle of the river.