Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/209

 He heard the Liddon bell, as it seemed, quite close to his side, ringing down upon him.

His first thought was of Hesther—then of Dunbar. Here they were all three of them, separated. The fog might last for hours.

He called, "Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!"

The bell echoed him, mocking him, "Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!"

Very cautiously he climbed upon his feet, steadying himself. The wind seemed completely to have died, and the sea sent up now only a faint rustle, like the mysterious movement of some hidden woman's dress, but the fog was so thick that it seemed to embrace Harkness ever more tightly—and it was cold with a bitter piercing chill. Harkness called again, "Dunbar! Dunbar!" listened, and then, as there was no kind of answer, began to move slowly forward.

Once, many years before, when a small boy at his private school, there had been an hour that every week he had feared beforehand with a panic dread. This had been the time of the fire-escape practice, when the boys, from some second-floor window, were pushed down, feet foremost, into a long canvas funnel through which they slipped safely to the ground. The passing through this funnel was only of a moment's duration, but that moment to