he was aware, however,
of a man struggling hard some little distance away to the left of her,
and from the tousled hair shaking in the water she was sure that it was
Jean Jacques.

So it proved to be; and thus it was that, at his last gasp almost, when
he felt he could keep up no longer, the wooden seat to which Carmen
clung came to his hand, and a word of cheer from her drew his head up
with what was almost a laugh.

"To think of this!" he said presently when he was safe, with her
swimming beside him without support, for the wooden seat would not
sustain the weight of two. "To think that it is you who saves me!" he
again declared eloquently, as they made the shore in comparative ease,
for she was a fine swimmer.

"It is the rest of the story," he said with great cheerfulness and
aplomb as they stood on the shore in the morning sun, shoeless,
coatless, but safe: and she understood.

There was nothing else for him to do. The usual process of romance had
been reversed. He had not saved her life, she had saved his. The least
that he could do was to give her shelter at the Manor Cartier yonder
at St. Saviour's, her and, if need be, her father. Human gratitude
must have play. It was so strong in this case that it alone could have
overcome the Norman caution of Jean Jacques, and all his worldly wisdom
(so much in his own eyes). Added thereto was the thing which had been
greatly stirred in him at the instant the Antoine struck; and now he
kept picturing Carmen in the big living-room and the big bedroom of the
house by the mill, where was the comfortable four-poster which had come
from the mansion of the last Baron of Beaugard down by St. Laurent.

Three days after the shipwreck of the Antoine, and as soon as sufficient
finery could be got in Quebec, it was accomplished, the fate of Jean
Jacques. How proud he was to open his cheque-book before the young
Spanish maid, and write in cramped, characteristic hand a cheque for
a hundred dollars or so at a time! A moiety of this money was given
to Sebastian Dolores, who could scarcely believe his good fortune. A
situation was got for him by the help of a good abbe at Quebec, who
was touched by the tale of the wreck of the Antoine, and by the no less
wonderful tale of the refugees of Spain, who naturally belonged to the
true faith which "feared God and honoured the King." Sebastian Dolores
was grateful for the post offered him, though he would rather have gone
to St. Saviour's wi