smartly from the old anchor
that lay on the grass just above high-water-mark, exhilarated him like
wine. He was not a poet, he knew nothing of Greek mythology; and yet on
summer days like these, the landscape and seascape were all changed for
him. To say that they were a dream would be untrue--they were the
reality; the hideous winter, with its damp fogs and rain, were the dream;
and yet upon seascape and landscape rested such a miraculous charm that
they seemed visionary rather than actual. As he walked along, he
naturally thought of yesterday, and the light, the heat, and the colour
naturally also renewed in him the picture which he had been continually
repainting for himself since yesterday morning. He went to the house,
saw the stonework was going on all right, and as he returned, whom should
he meet but Miss Shipton, who, undeterred by the fright of the day
before, had just had another bathe, and was taking a turn along the cliff
to dry her hair, which was hanging over her shoulders. She was not by
any means what is called "fast," but she knew how to dress herself. She
had a straw hat with a very large brim, a plain brown holland dress, a
brown holland parasol, and pretty white shoes; for nothing would ever
induce Miss Shipton to put her feet into the yellow abominations which
most persons wore at Perran in the summer.

Robert took off his cap.

"Oh, Mr. Trevanion, I am so glad to see you. You must have thought me
such a queer creature. I have not half thanked you. But what could I
do? I couldn't write, and I couldn't call, and I thought you would not
like a noise being made about it. Yet you saved me from being drowned."

"It was nothing, Miss Shipton," said Robert, smiling. "You were in the
ebb there, and I pulled you out of it--just twenty yards, that was all.
I hope you haven't told anybody."

"No; as I have said, I thought you wouldn't like it; but nevertheless,
although it is all very well for you to talk in that way, I owe you my
life."

"Are you going any farther?"

"Just a few steps till my hair is dry."

He turned and walked by her side.

"You see that the buoys are beyond where the channel really begins. I
once tried to swim round two of them, but it was as much as ever I could
do to get back. If I were you, I would give them a wide berth again; but
if you should be caught, go on and do what we did yesterday--try to turn
off into the back-stream just inside the point."

"You may