she watched them pass.

Ten minutes passed; twenty minutes; the silver gleams made but tiny
spaces above the flood. Lilith rose to her feet and stood poised for
flight.

Another five minutes and the waters lapped over the surface of the
smallest stone. Like an arrow from the bow, Lilith flew across the
bridge, down the path to the little Inn.

"Help! Help! The ropes! ... A lady is on one of the rocks. The lady
from Plas Glynn. The ropes! Quick! Quick!"

The ropes hung coiled in the entrance of the Inn. It was not the river
which was the danger, but the shaded, sleeping canal. Many a pedestrian
had taken a false step off that fern-bordered bank, and had had a sore
struggle for his life. The Innkeeper's own son had had this struggle.
The ropes were ready, noosed at the end--long, stout ropes, for use, not
play. The Innkeeper seized them from their pegs and followed Lilith
down the path. Afterwards he recalled that it was she who issued
orders, and he who obeyed. He lashed the end of the ropes round the
stump of the old tree. One noose was put round his own waist, the other
he carried in his hand. The young lady stood by to let out their
length, but before he could start, a cry sounded from behind, a terrible
cry from the depths of a tortured heart, and Rupert Dempster fell upon
him, and wrenched the ropes from his hand.

They lifted their voices, the two men and the girl, and sent forth a
ringing cry of alarm; once, twice, they sent it forth, while Rupert felt
his way to the first wave-lashed stone, and at the third cry Eve's white
figure appeared in the aperture between the rocks.

The sight on which she looked was enough to turn the strongest head--the
waste of waters where there had been a bubbling stream, the swirling
current covering the way of retreat; yet to the onlookers there appeared
no sign of distress in Eve's attitude. The lurid sun still shown down,
shaftlike through the clouds, and showed her white figure in vivid
distinctness. She was bending forward, gazing, not at the shore, but
upward across the flood. Her ear was bent low, as though listening to
its voice...

Rupert turned back from the first stone, threw off his shoes, and
started afresh. Once and again his foot slipped, and he swayed
perilously to right and left, but always he recovered himself, and
pressed on steadfastly towards the rock where stood his wife,
motionless, bending forward towards the stream.

He was by