"Oh, it's your secret," said Nita, shortly, and turned away.

And Ruth had a word to say to Tom, too, as they hurried side by side to
the boat, he carrying the fish. "Now, Tommy--remember!" she said.

"I won't be easy in my mind, just the same, while that girl is here,"
growled Master Tom.

"That's foolish. She never meant to do it."

"Huh! She was scared, of course. But she's mean enough----"

"Stop! somebody will hear you. And, anyway," Ruth added, remembering
what Nita had said, "it's _my_ secret."

"True enough; it is."

"Then don't tell it, Tommy," she added, with a laugh.

But it was hard to meet the sharp eye of Mercy Curtis and keep the
secret. "And pray, Miss, why did you have to go into the water after
the fish?" Mercy demanded.

"I was afraid he would get away," laughed Ruth.

"And who helped you do it?" snapped the lame girl.

"Helped me do what?"

"Helped you tumble in."

"Now, do you suppose I needed help to do so silly a thing as that?"
cried Ruth.

"You needed help to do it the other day on the steamboat," returned
Mercy, slily. "And I saw The Fox following you around that way."

"Why, what nonsense you talk, Mercy Curtis!"

But Ruth wondered if Mercy was to be so easily put off. The lame girl was
so very sharp.

However, Ruth was determined to keep her secret. Not a word had she said
to Mary Cox. Indeed, she had not looked at her since she climbed out
of the open pool behind the boulder and, well-nigh breathless, reached
the rock after that perilous plunge. Tom she had sworn to silence, Nita
she had warned to be still, and now Mercy's suspicions were to be routed.

"Poor, poor girl!" muttered Ruth, with more sorrow than anger. "If she
is not sorry and afraid yet, how will she feel when she awakes in the
night and remembers what might have been?"

Nevertheless, the girl from the Red Mill did not allow her secret to
disturb her cheerfulness. She hid any feeling she might have had against
The Fox. When they all met at dinner on the _Miraflame_, she merely
laughed and joked about her accident, and passed around dainty bits of
the baked tautog that Phineas had prepared especially for her.

That fisherman's chowder was a marvel, and altogether he proved to be
as good a cook as Heavy had declared. The boys had caught several bass,
and they caught more after dinner. But those were saved to take home. The
girls, however, had had enough fishing. Ruth's experience frightened
them away f