a heavy body flung itself into
the pool from lower down the rock. He knew the black head and the round
shoulders of Mr. Stocks.

The man caught the girl as she struggled to get out of the swirl and
with strong ugly strokes began to make for shore. Lewis stood with a
sick heart, slow to realize the horror which had overtaken him. She was
out of danger, though the man was swimming badly; dismally he noted the
fact of his atrocious swimming. But this was the hero; he had stood
irresolute. The thought burned him like a hot iron.

Half a dozen pairs of hands relieved the swimmer of his burden. Alice
was little the worse, a trifle pale, very draggled and unhappy, and
utterly tired. Lady Manorwater wept over her and kissed her, and hailed
the dripping Stocks as her preserver. Lewis alone stood back. He
satisfied himself that she was unhurt, and then, on the plea of getting
the carriage, set off down the glen with a very grey, quivering face.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PLEASURES OF A CONSCIENCE

It was half-way down the glen that the full ignominy of his position
came on Lewis with the shock of a thunder-clap. A hateful bitterness
against her preserver and the tricks of fate had been his solitary
feeling, till suddenly he realized the part he had played, and saw
himself for a naked coward. Coward he called himself-without
reflection; for in such a moment the mind thinks in crude colours and
bold lines of division. He set his teeth in his lip, and with a heart
sinking at the shameful thought stalked into the farm stables where the
Glenavelin servants were.

He could not return to the Pool. Alice was little hurt, so anxiety was
needless; better let him leave Mr. Stocks to enjoy his heroics in
peace. He would find an excuse; meanwhile, give him quiet and solitude
to digest his bitterness. He cursed himself for the unworthiness of his
thoughts. What a pass had he come to when he grudged a little _kudos_
to a rival, grudged it churlishly, childishly. He flung from him the
self-reproach. Other people would wonder at his ungenerousness, and his
sulky ill-nature. They would explain by the first easy discreditable
reason. What eared he for their opinion when he knew the far greater
shame in his heart?

For as he strode up the woodland path to Etterick the wrappings of
surface passion fell off from his view of the past hour, and he saw the
bald and naked ribs of his own incapacity. It was a trivial incident to
the world, but to hims