"We must take the lady into this boat of ours, and tow the little one after us," said the man.
Mary Grey was lifted, in an apparently fainting condition, from her own little boat into the larger one beside it. She was laid down carefully and waited on tenderly by the sympathizing ladies in the larger boat.
Meanwhile the little boat was tied to the stern of the larger one, to be towed up the river.
"Where are we to take the poor unfortunate woman, I wonder?" said one of the ladies.
"If she does not come to her senses in time to tell us where she lives you can bring her to my house," answered another lady.
Everybody was emulous to succor this unhappy one.
As they neared the city Mary Grey condescended to heave a deep sigh, shudder and open her eyes.
Then a chorus of sympathizing voices saluted her. But she wept and moaned, and pretended to refuse to be comforted.
It was some time before the persevering efforts of a gentleman succeeded in persuading her to understand and answer his question as to where she lived.
"At the Star Hotel," she said, with a gasp and a sigh, as if her heart were broken.
The boat landed; and the "poor lady," as she was compassionately called, was tenderly lifted out by the gentlemen and carefully supported between two of them while she was led to the hotel, followed by the ladies.
The sad news of the young gentleman's fate was immediately communicated to the people at the hotel, and soon spread through the town.
Ah, the drowning of a man at that point was not such an unusual event after all, and it made much less impression than it ought to have done.
Some people said they felt sorry for the poor young woman so suddenly bereaved and left among strangers; and perhaps they really believed that they did so; but the next instant they thought of something else.
But the ladies who had been present near the scene of the catastrophe, and had witnessed Mary Grey's well-acted terror, grief and despair, really did sympathize with her supposed sorrows to a very painful extent.
After following her to the hotel, they went with her to her room, and helped to undress her and put her to bed.
And two among them offered to remain and watch with her during the night.
The sinful woman, already a prey to the horrors of remorse and superstition, dreading the darkness and solitude of the night, fearing almost to see the dripping specter of the drowned man standing over her bed, gratefully accepted their offer, and begged, at the same time, for morphia.