Again the vessel stopped, and a boat was lowered.
"Wonderful presence of mind," the doctor said to Joyce as she, too, anxiously strained her eyes to look for the reappearance of Jack's form in the water, which had been seen, and then lost sight of. "Did you hear how a fellow kept his head when he saw young Darling go over, sending a life-buoy the same moment after him? Splendid, I call that!"
Joyce was deeply impressed. "He has probably saved Jack's life! Good man! does any one know where my sister is?"
Kitty was nowhere to be seen. Joyce presently found her in the saloon crouching on a sofa with her hands over her ears.
"He is drowned, I know he is drowned, and I shall never see him any more! I have killed him just as surely as if I sent him over with my own hands!—oh, let me die!" She was beside herself, and her suffering would not only have more than healed Jack's injured feelings, but have made him sue for pardon.
Joyce took her in her arms and they clung together, fearful of what they should presently hear. The shrieks of the women and children were mingled with the voices of the men shouting instructions from the deck to the officer in the boat. Nothing definite could be gleaned from the excited ejaculations of the onlookers.
"What made me do it!—why did I let myself behave so!" Kitty cried shivering from the force of her emotions. "I shall never be able to ask his forgiveness for my hardness, and yet in my heart I was melted towards him and longing to tell him so,—only waiting till the evening when we could be more alone. Oh, I am terribly punished for daring to punish my poor Jack!"
"We are not to give up hope, dearest, but are to will with might and main that he be saved. It all helps. Honor Bright says it is scientifically possible to impose will-power on the forces of nature. It is a way God works for us and with us."
"It is useless to tell me all that when I cannot even think!" wailed Kitty.
"But there is a great deal in heaven and earth that is not 'dreamt of in our philosophy,'" Joyce repeated.