ower with horror,--and the next he was cleaving with mighty strokes the
startled surface of the Perdu. That hand--it was not pale green, like
the waving hand of the old, childish vision. It was white and the arm
was white, and white the drenched lawn sleeve clinging to it. He had
recognized it, he knew not how, for Celia's.

Reaching the edge of the lily patch, Reuben dived again and again,
groping desperately among the long, serpent-like stems. The Perdu at
this point--and even in his horror he noted it with surprise--was
comparatively shallow. He easily got the bottom and searched it
minutely. The edge of the dark abyss, into which he strove in vain to
penetrate, was many feet distant from the spot where the vision had
appeared. Suddenly, as he rested, breathless and trembling, on the
grassy brink of the Perdu, he realized that this, too, was but a vision.
It was but one of the old mysteries of the Perdu; and it had taken for
him that poignant form, because his heart and brain were so full of
Celia. With a sigh of exquisite relief he thought how amused she would
be at his plight, but how tender when she learned the cause of it. He
laughed softly; and just then the blue heron came back to the Perdu.

Reuben shook himself, pressed some of the water from his dripping
clothes, and climbed the steep upper bank of the Perdu. As he reached
the top he paused among the birch trees to look back upon the water. How
like a floor of opal it lay in the sun; then his heart leaped into his
throat suffocatingly, for again rose the hand and arm, and waved, and
dropped back among the lilies! He grasped the nearest tree, that he
might not, in spite of himself, plunge back into the pale mystery of the
Perdu. He rubbed his eyes sharply, drew a few long breaths to steady his
heart, turned his back doggedly on the shining terror, and set forward
swiftly for the farm-house, now in full view not three hundred yards
away.

For all the windless down-streaming summer sunshine, there was that in
Reuben's drenched clothes which chilled him to the heart. As he reached
the wide-eaved cluster of the farmstead, a horn in the distance blew
musically for noon. It was answered by another and another. But no such
summons came from the kitchen door to which his feet now turned. The
quiet of the Seventh Day seemed to possess the wide, bright farm-yard. A
flock of white ducks lay drowsing on a grassy spot. A few hens dusted
themselves with silent diligence