urch. Susan was reputed to be one of the beauties of Perran, although
opinion was divided. She had--what were not common in Cornwall--light
flaxen hair, blue eyes, and a rosy face, somewhat inclined to be plump.
The Shiptons lay completely outside Michael's circle. They were mere
formalists in religion, fond of pleasure, and Susan especially was much
given to gaiety, went to picnics and dances, rowed herself about in the
bay with her friends, and sauntered about the town with her father and
mother on Sunday afternoon. She was also fond of bathing, and was a good
swimmer. Michael hardly knew how to put his objection into words, but he
nevertheless had a horror of women who could swim. It seemed to him an
ungodly accomplishment. He did not believe for a moment that St. Paul
would have sanctioned it, and he sternly forbade Eliza the use of one of
the bathing-machines which had lately been introduced into Perran for the
benefit of the few visitors who had discovered its charms.

It was a summer's morning in June, and Robert had gone along the shore on
business to a house which was being built a little way out of the town.
The tide was running out fast to the eastward. A small river came down
into the bay, and the current was sweeping round the rocks to the left in
a great curve at a distance of about two hundred yards from the beach.
Inside the curve was smooth water, which lay calmly rippling in the sun,
while at its edge the buoys marking the channel were swaying to and fro,
and the stream lifted itself against them, swung past them, with bright
multitudinous eddies, and went out to sea. Half-way in the shallows was
one of the bathing-machines, and Robert saw that a girl whom he could not
recognise was having a bathe. She swam well, and presently she started
off straight outwards. Robert watched her for a moment, and saw her go
closer and closer to the dangerous line. He knew she could not see it so
well as he could, and he knew too that the buoys which were placed to
guide small craft into the harbour were well in the channel, and that at
least twenty yards this side of them the ebb would be felt, and with such
force that no woman could make headway against it. Suddenly he saw that
her course was deflected to the left, and he knew that unless some help
could arrive she would be lost. In an instant his coat, waistcoat, and
boots were off, and he was rushing over the sandy shallows, which
fortunately stretched