tie threw
off his coat, and made her thrust her arms into it as well as she could,
and Lascelles followed suit by spreading his over her knees. The sky
became stormier, and the wind howled ominously. They had started full of
spirits, and gay talk and chaff had been bandied among them. No one could
quite tell when it dropped, for it had been kept up with an effort after
the threatening appearance of things had sobered them.

Cecil was drenched to the skin, but they ceased to express solicitude on
that account, for a more pressing apprehension filled each mind, that the
canoe so weighted could not live through it much longer.

The girl was stiffening in the rigidity of her reclining attitude. The
least movement would have capsized them, and each wave larger than the
rest she expected to swamp the canoe. Suddenly she remembered Du Meresq
having once said he could not swim, and then, for the first time, her
heart sunk, and a sickening horror came over her.

Lascelles, she supposed, in the event of their being upset, would
endeavour to save her. But Bertie! He would drown before her eyes, for
the water was deep, and the shore for some time had been only a nearly
perpendicular rock. Probably Lascelles so laden might be unable to land
even her. Looking upon Du Meresq as doomed, that contingency did not
disturb her. Drowning, she had heard, was a pleasant death. It didn't
look so though, with that cruel steel water lapping thirstily for its
prey. After the one supreme moment when she sunk with her love, would
they rise again in the land where there is neither marrying nor giving in
marriage, with the Platonic serenity of spirits, all earthly passion
etherealized away?

She looked up; Lascelles was baling out the water with his hat. "Du
Meresq, you had better haul down the sail and take the paddle," said he
significantly.

"Our only chance is to make Coonwood," returned the other; "there's no
landing nearer. We should never get there paddling. I must keep up the
sail and run for it."

He glanced at Cecil as he spoke, who met his eyes with a calm, strange
smile.

A muttered consultation between Du Meresq and Lascelles alone broke the
silence for some time. The latter continued to bale, rejecting Cecil's
offer of assistance, only entreating her to continue perfectly still. The
canoe was almost level with the water. "It must come very soon now," she
thought, and, shutting her eyes, tried to realize the great change
approac