nington turned round and
missed her?"

"Donnington must have heard me call out." Varick was lighting a
cigarette, and Sir Lyon saw that his hand shook; "and yet when I saw her
roll down the bank I was so paralyzed with horror that my voice seemed
to go."

He looked appealingly at his friend Panton.

"Yes, I can well understand that," said the doctor feelingly. "I have
known shock close the throat absolutely." He added: "Did you see her
sink and rise again twice before Donnington got at her, Varick? I have
always wondered whether drowning people always come up three times--or
if it's only an old wives' tale."

"Yes, no, I can't remember--"

Varick put his hand over his eyes, as if trying to shut out some
dreadful sight. Then he groped his way to a chair, and sat down heavily.

"I say, Varick, I _am_ sorry."

Dr. Panton looked really concerned. "We've been thinking so much of Miss
Bubbles and of her rescuer that we have forgotten you!" he exclaimed.

Their host leant forward; he buried his face in his hands. "I shall
never forget it--never," he muttered brokenly. "The horror that seized
me--the awful feeling that I could do nothing--nothing! I felt so
absolutely distraught that I seemed to see _myself_, not Bubbles,
floating down there--on the surface of the water."

He looked up, and they were all, even Tapster, painfully impressed by
his look of retrospective horror. Dr. Panton told himself that Lionel
Varick was an even more sensitive man than he had hitherto known him to
be.

CHAPTER XVII

Dinner was to be half an hour later than usual, and Dr. Panton, as he
went off to his comfortable, warm room, felt pleasantly, healthily
tired.

He had gone in to see his patients for a moment on his way upstairs, and
they were both going on well. Bubbles was beginning to look her own
queer, elfish little self again. She was curiously apathetic, as people
so often are after any kind of shock, but it was clear that there were
to be no bad after-effects of the accident. As for Donnington, the young
man declared that he felt quite all right, and he was even anxious to
get up for dinner. But that, of course, could not be allowed.

"All's well that ends well," muttered the doctor, as he threw himself
for a moment into a chair drawn up invitingly before the fire.

He did go on to tell himself, however, that he now felt a little
concerned over Lionel Varick. Varick now looked far more really ill than
did either B