on be as wet as if she had taken the plunge.

He was kicking vigorously in the water, and was thankful to find
that, now he had got over the first chill, his teeth were not
chattering so miserably.

Another ten minutes, he reckoned, would put him high enough in the
water to scramble on to the ledge, and then it would have to be a
tussle of physical strength, if necessary, for he meant to save
Mary somehow, whether she would let him or not.

The minutes dragged slowly on, the rain beat down with tempestuous
violence, and in that dreary gulch it was dark, almost like night.
But the water was rising still, and putting out all his strength
Jervis dragged himself up on to the shelf of rock. Mary saw him
coming. Then she scrambled to her feet with a cry of fear, and,
before he could stretch out an arm to save her, reeled and toppled
over into the water.

CHAPTER XX

Katherine Makes a Discovery

Katherine was having a thorough turn-out of the store. Everything
was off the shelves, the cobwebs had all been swept from the
ceiling, and now, armed with a scrubbing-brush, she was cleaning
all the shelves with soap and water. To use her own expression, it
was "horridly" dirty work. But it had to be done, so the sooner it
was got through and finished the better. She had done the top
shelves all round, and, changing the water in her pail, had started
on the next lot and was scrubbing vigorously, when she heard a
long-drawn, mournful howl from the other side of the river.

"That is Hero," she said to herself in surprise; and then,
remembering that Mary Selincourt had called for the dog that
morning on her way down river, she came down the ladder, and, going
to the door, looked out.

There was Hero plainly enough, a big black-and-white dog, which,
while looking like a Newfoundland, had such a marked aversion to
water that it would never swim if it could avoid doing so.
Katherine would have turned back to her work, and left the dog to
remain where it was until someone came along with a boat, but she
remembered that Mary had wanted the dog to accompany her in a
ramble, and so it was rather disquieting to find the creature had
wandered home again.

Sitting on its haunches, the dog was flinging up its head for
another howl, but, chancing to catch sight of Katherine, it broke
into eager barking instead, pleading so plainly for a dry journey
across the river that, with a laugh at her own weak yielding, she
ran down t