his white face.

A dull color rose to Lord Newhaven's cheek.

"I thought it was an accident," he said. "If it was not, I beg your
pardon."

There was a moment's silence.

"It _was_ an accident," said Hugh, hoarsely, and he turned on his elbow
and looked fixedly at the water, so that his companion might not see the
working of his face.

Lord Newhaven walked slowly away in the direction of Doll, whose distant
figure, followed by another, was hurrying towards them.

"And so there is a Rachel as well, is there?" he said to himself, vainly
trying to steel himself against his adversary.

"How is he now?" said Doll, coming within ear-shot.

"He's all right; but you'd better get him into dry clothes, and
yourself, too."

"Change on the bank," said Doll, seizing a bundle from the keeper. "It's
as hot as an oven in the sun. Why, Scarlett's sitting up! I thought when
we laid into him on the bank that he was too far gone, didn't you? I
suppose"--hesitating--"Crack?"

Lord Newhaven shook his head.

"I must go back to my boys now," he said, "or they will be getting into
mischief."

Doll nodded. He and Lord Newhaven had had a hard fight to get the
leaking boat to land with Hugh at the bottom of it. It had filled
ominously when Doll ceased baling to help to drag in the heavy,
unconscious body.

There had been a moment when, inapprehensive as he was, Doll had
remembered, with a qualm, that Lord Newhaven could not swim.

"Every fellow ought to swim," was the moral he drew from the incident
and repeated to his wife, who, struck by the soundness of the remark,
repeated it to the Gresleys.

Lord Newhaven retraced his steps slowly along the bank in his
water-logged boots. He was tired, and he did not hurry, for he could see
in the distance two small figures sitting faithfully on a log where he
had left them.

"Good little chaps," he said, half aloud.

In spite of himself his thoughts went back to Hugh. His feelings towards
him had not changed, but they had been forced during the last half-hour
out of their original intrenchments into the open, and were liable to
attack from new directions.

It was not that he had virtually saved Hugh's life, for Doll would never
have got him into the leaking boat and kept it afloat single-handed.
That first moment of enthusiasm, when he had rubbed the senseless limbs
and breathed into the cold lips, and had felt his heart leap when life
came halting back into them, that moment had pa