"No, I'm not!" she snapped, trying desperately to hide an unexpected
quaver in her voice. "But--"

"You're not chilled, are you?"

"No. Not much."

"Nor cramped?"

"No."

"Well, you're all right then. Goodness, you've been in the water hours
longer than this, heaps of times. Cheer up, old girl, you're all
right. What's the matter, anyhow?"

But she did not answer, for she hardly knew herself. She had no real
fear of being drowned, that seemed impossible. But strange new
feelings had begun to stir in the heart, that so far had been only the
care-free heart of a girl, almost the heart of a daring boy. She did
not realise that what she really wanted was that Fred should be
solicitous about her. If he had shown the slightest anxiety over her
she would have become recklessly daring. But young Fred would as soon
have shown tender care for a frisky young porpoise in the water, as
Leslie, even had it been his nature to care unduly for any one but Fred
Hamilton.

The canoe was approaching swiftly, and the man in it was near enough to
be recognised. "I say," cried Fred, "it's Rod McRae. I didn't know he
was home. Ship ahoy, there!" he shouted gaily. "Hurrah, and give us a
lift; it's too damp for the lady to walk home!"

Leslie Graham looked at the approaching canoeist. She and Fred
Hamilton had both attended the same school, Sunday-school and church as
Roderick McRae. But she could remember him but dimly as an awkward
country boy, in her brief High School days, before she "finished" with
a year at a city boarding-school. Her life at school had been all fun
and mischief, and rushing away from irksome lessons to more fun at
home; his had been all serious hard work, and rushing away from the
fascination of his lessons to harder work on the farm. Fred Hamilton
had never worked at school, but he knew him better; the free-masonry of
boyhood had made that possible.

"Why, what's happened?" cried Roderick as he swept alongside the wreck.
"Fred Hamilton! Surely you're not upset?"

"Doesn't look like it, does it?" enquired the young man in the water
rather sarcastically. "Here, give this thing a hoist, will you, Rod?
I can't understand how such an idiotic thing happened? Miss Graham and
I were paddling along as steadily as you are now, and--"

But Roderick was paying no attention to him. He was looking at the
girl hanging to the upturned canoe, her eyes grieved and frightened.
With a quick stroke he p