is time Deronda felt sure that she meant
to wrap the wet cloak round her as a drowning shroud; there was no
longer time to hesitate about frightening her. He rose and seized his
oar to ply across; happily her position lay a little below him. The
poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of discovery from the
opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding her cloak half out
of the water. She crouched and covered her face as if she kept a faint
hope that she had not been seen, and that the boatman was accidentally
coming toward her. But soon he was within brief space of her, steadying
his boat against the bank, and speaking, but very gently--

"Don't be afraid. You are unhappy. Pray, trust me. Tell me what I can
do to help you."

She raised her head and looked up at him. His face now was toward the
light, and she knew it again. But she did not speak for a few moments
which were a renewal of their former gaze at each other. At last she
said in a low sweet voice, with an accent so distinct that it suggested
foreignness and yet was not foreign, "I saw you before," and then added
dreamily, after a like pause, "nella miseria."

Deronda, not understanding the connection of her thoughts, supposed
that her mind was weakened by distress and hunger.

"It was you, singing?" she went on, hesitatingly--"Nessun maggior
dolore." The mere words themselves uttered in her sweet undertones
seemed to give the melody to Deronda's ear.

"Ah, yes," he said, understanding now, "I am often singing them. But I
fear you will injure yourself staying here. Pray let me take you in my
boat to some place of safety. And that wet cloak--let me take it."

He would not attempt to take it without her leave, dreading lest he
should scare her. Even at his words, he fancied that she shrank and
clutched the cloak more tenaciously. But her eyes were fixed on him
with a question in them as she said, "You look good. Perhaps it is
God's command."

"Do trust me. Let me help you. I will die before I will let any harm
come to you."

She rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak
and then letting it fall on the ground--it was too heavy for her tired
arms. Her little woman's figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands
together one over the other against her waist, and went a step backward
while she leaned her head forward as if not to lose sight of his face,
was unspeakably touching.

"Great God!" the words escaped Deronda in