Page 262 - women-in-love

shadow.
‘Oh get her out! Oh Di, DARLING! Oh get her out! Oh
Daddy, Oh Daddy!’ moaned the child’s voice, in distraction.
Somebody was in the water, with a life belt. Two boats pad-
dled near, their lanterns swinging ineffectually, the boats
nosing round.
‘Hi there—Rockley!—hi there!’
‘Mr Gerald!’ came the captain’s terrified voice. ‘Miss Di-
ana’s in the water.’
‘Anybody gone in for her?’ came Gerald’s sharp voice.
‘Young Doctor Brindell, sir.’
‘Where?’
‘Can’t see no signs of them, sir. Everybody’s looking, but
there’s nothing so far.’
There was a moment’s ominous pause.
‘Where did she go in?’
‘I think—about where that boat is,’ came the uncertain
answer, ‘that one with red and green lights.’
‘Row there,’ said Gerald quietly to Gudrun.
‘Get her out, Gerald, oh get her out,’ the child’s voice was
crying anxiously. He took no heed.
‘Lean back that way,’ said Gerald to Gudrun, as he stood
up in the frail boat. ‘She won’t upset.’
In another moment, he had dropped clean down, soft and
plumb, into the water. Gudrun was swaying violently in her
boat, the agitated water shook with transient lights, she rea-
lised that it was faintly moonlight, and that he was gone. So
it was possible to be gone. A terrible sense of fatality robbed
her of all feeling and thought. She knew he was gone out of

262 Women in Love