Something white swept by below,--only a broken oar--but she
began to wonder how a human body would look floating through the
night. It was an awesome fancy, but it took possession of her, and,
as it grew, her eyes dilated, her breath came fast, and her lips
fell apart, for she seemed to see the phantom she had conjured up,
and it wore the likeness of herself.
With an ominous chill creeping through her blood, and a growing
tumult in her mind, she thought, "I must go," but still stood
motionless, leaning over the wide gulf, eager to see where that dead
thing would pass away. So plainly did she see it, so peaceful was
the white face, so full of rest the folded hands, so strangely like,
and yet unlike, herself, that she seemed to lose her identity, and
wondered which was the real and which the imaginary Christie. Lower
and lower she bent; looser and looser grew her hold upon the pillar;
faster and faster beat the pulses in her temples, and the rush of
some blind impulse was swiftly coming on, when a hand seized and
caught her back.
For an instant every thing grew black before her eyes, and the earth
seemed to slip away from underneath her feet. Then she was herself
again, and found that she was sitting on a pile of lumber, with her
head uncovered, and a woman's arm about her.
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