It was Thurston’s own weapon, that he had lost some months previous in the woods of Luckenough.  It was a costly and curious specimen of French taste and ingenuity.  The handle was of pearl, carved in imitation of the sword-fish, and the blade corresponded to the long pointed beak that gives the fish that name.

Thurston scarcely noticed that it was his dagger, but pushing the boy aside, he ran to the stables, saddled a horse with the swiftness of thought, threw himself into his stirrups, and galloped furiously away towards the beach.

The rain was now falling in torrents, and the wind driving it in fierce gusts against his face.  The tempest was at its very height, and it seemed at times impossible to breast the blast—­it seemed as though steed and rider must be overthrown!  Yet he lashed and spurred his horse, and struggled desperately on, thinking with fierce anguish of Marian, his Marian, lying wounded, helpless, alone and dying, exposed to all the fury of the winds and waves upon that tempestuous coast, and dreading with horror, lest before he should be able to reach her, her helpless form, still living, might be washed off by the advancing waves.  Thus he spurred and lashed his horse, and drove him against rain and wind, and through the darkness of the night.

With all his desperate haste, it was two hours before he approached the beach.  And as he drew near the heavy cannonading of the waves upon the shore admonished him that the tide was at its highest point.  He pressed rapidly onward, threw himself from his horse, and ran forward to the edge of the bank above the beach.  It was only to meet the confirmation of his worst fears!  The waters were thundering against the bank upon which he stood.  The tide had come in and overswept the whole beach, and now, lashed and driven by the wind, the waves tossed and raved and roared with appalling fury.

Marian was gone, lost, swept away by the waves! that was the thought that wrung from him a cry of fierce agony, piercing through all the discord of the storm, as he ran up and down the shore, hoping nothing, expecting nothing, yet totally unable to tear himself from the fatal spot.

And so he wildly walked and raved, until his garments were drenched through with the rain; until the storm exhausted its fury and subsided; until the changing atmosphere, the still, severe cold, froze all his clothing stiff around him; so he walked, groaning and crying and calling despairingly upon the name of Marian, until the night waned and the morning dawned, and the eastern horizon grew golden, then crimson, then fiery with the coming sun.