! Of course not! But--oh! Don't you see? It's madness to think of
swimming across with the tide against you! You could never do it. You
might get cramp--Oh! Anything might happen! You shan't go!"

She caught his arm impetuously, her eyes dilating with the sudden terror
that had laid hold of her. But he was obdurate.

"Look there," he said, pointing to a faint haze thickening the
atmosphere. "Do you see the mist coming up? Very soon it will be all
over us, like a blanket, and there'd be no possibility of swimming
across at all. I must go at once."

"But that only adds to the danger," she argued desperately. "The fog
may come down sooner than you expect, and then you'd lose your bearings
altogether."

"I must risk that," he answered grimly. "Don't you realize that it's
impossible--_impossible_ for us to remain here?"

"No, I don't," she returned stubbornly. "It isn't worth such a frightful
risk. Some one is sure to look for us eventually."

"'Eventually' might mean to-morrow morning"--drily--"and that would be
just twelve hours too late. It's worth the risk fifty times over."

"It's not!"--passionately. "Do you suppose I care two straws for the
gossip of a parcel of spiteful old women?"

"Not at the moment, perhaps, but later you wouldn't be able to help
it. What people think of you, what they say of you, can make all the
difference between heaven and hell." He spoke heavily, as though his
words were weighted with some deadening memory. "And do you think I
could bear to feel that I--_I_ had given people a handle for gossiping
about you? I'd cut their tongues out first!" he added savagely.

He stripped off his coat, and, sitting down on a rock, began removing
his boots, while Sara stood watching him in silence with big, sombre
eyes.

Presently he stood up, bareheaded and barefooted. Below the lean, tanned
face the column of his throat showed white as a woman's, while the thin
silk of his vest revealed the powerful line of shoulder at its base. His
keen eyes were gazing steadily across to the opposite shore, as though
measuring the distance he must traverse, and as a chance shaft from
the westering sun rested upon him, investing him momentarily in its
radiance, there seemed something rather splendid about him--something
very sure and steadfast and utterly without fear.

A sharp cry broke from Sara.

"Garth! Garth!"--his name sprang to her lips spontaneously. "You mustn't
go! You mustn't go! . . ."

He wheele