s merely Mary Grant
to me. Mary Grant she was and Mary Grant she would doubtless remain,
until,--until somebody changed it to probably--Mary-something-worse.

As I day-dreamed, I felt the air about me more chilly than usual.

All the previous night, the sea had been running into the Bay choppy
and white-tipped, but now it was as level as the face of a mirror,
although everywhere on the surface of the water loose driftwood floated.

I let myself go, down the smooth shelving rock upon which I had been
lying. I dropped noiselessly far down into the deep water. I came up
and struck out for home,--all my previous lassitude gone from me.

I was swimming along leisurely, interested only in my thoughts and the
water immediately around me, when something a bit ahead attracted my
attention.

I was half-way between Rita's Isle and the shore at the time. The
object in front kept bobbing,--bobbing. At first, I took it to be part
of a semi-submerged log, but as I drew nearer I was quite surprised to
find that it was an early morning swimmer like myself. Nearer still,
and I discovered that the swimmer was a woman whose hair was bound
securely by a multi-coloured, heavy, silk muffler, such as certain
types of London Johnnies affected for a time.

Whoever the swimmer was, she had already gone at least half a mile, for
that was the distance to the nearest point of land and there was no
boat of any kind in her tracks.

Half a mile!--and another half-mile to go! Quite a swim for a lady!

Afraid lest it should prove more than enough for a member of what I had
always been taught to recognise as the more delicately constituted of
the sexes, I drew closer to the swimmer.

When only a few yards behind, she turned round with a startled
exclamation.

It was Mary Grant.

A chill ran along my spine. I became unreasonable immediately. What
right had she to run risks of this nature? Was there not plenty of
water for her to swim in near the shore where she would be within easy
hail of the land should she become exhausted?

Almost angrily, I narrowed the space between us.

She had recognised me at her first glimpse.

"Are you not rather far from the shore, Miss Grant?" I inquired bruskly.

"Thank you! Not a bit too far," she exclaimed, keeping up a steady
progress through the water.

She moved easily and did not betray any signs of weariness, except it
were in a catching of her voice, which almost every one has who talks