When he woke, feeling very sick and so stiff and sore that he could scarcely move, the broad daylight was streaming through the blinds.  The place was perfectly quiet, for the doctor’s assistant who had brought him back to life, and who lay upon a couch at the further end of the room, slept the sleep of youth and complete exhaustion.  Only an eight-day clock on the mantelpiece ticked in that solemn and aggressive way which clocks affect in the stillness.  Geoffrey strained his eyes to make out the time, and finally discovered that it wanted a few minutes to six o’clock.  Then he fell to wondering how Miss Granger was, and to repeating in his own mind every scene of their adventure, till the last, when they were whirled out of the canoe in the embrace of that white-crested billow.

He remembered nothing after that, nothing but a rushing sound and a vision of foam.  He shuddered a little as he thought of it, for his nerves were shaken; it is not pleasant to have been so very near the End and the Beginning; and then his heart went out with renewed gratitude towards the girl who had restored him to life and light and hope.  Just at this moment he thought that he heard a sound of sobbing outside the window.  He listened; the sound went on.  He tried to rise, only to find that he was too stiff to manage it.  So, as a last resource, he called the doctor.

“What is the matter?” answered that young gentleman, jumping up with the alacrity of one accustomed to be suddenly awakened.  “Do you feel queer?”

“Yes, I do rather,” answered Geoffrey, “but it isn’t that.  There is somebody crying outside here.”

The doctor put on his coat, and, going to the window, drew the blind.

“Why, so there is,” he said.  “It’s a little girl with yellow hair and without a hat.”

“A little girl,” answered Geoffrey.  “Why, it must be Effie, my daughter.  Please let her in.”

“All right.  Cover yourself up, and I can do that through the window; it isn’t five feet from the ground.”  Accordingly he opened the window, and addressing the little girl, asked her what her name was.

“Effie,” she sobbed in answer, “Effie Bingham.  I’ve come to look for daddie.”

“All right, my dear, don’t cry so; your daddie is here.  Come and let me lift you in.”

Another moment and there appeared through the open window the very sweetest little face and form that ever a girl of six was blessed with.  For the face was pink and white, and in it were set two beautiful dark eyes, which, contrasting with the golden hair, made the child a sight to see.  But alas! just now the cheeks were stained with tears, and round the large dark eyes were rings almost as dark.  Nor was this all.  The little dress was hooked awry, on one tiny foot all drenched with dew there was no boot, and on the yellow curls no hat.

“Oh! daddie, daddie,” cried the child, catching sight of him and struggling to reach her father’s arms, “you isn’t dead, is you, daddie?”