out a hundred yards before he was out of his depth.
Susan--for it was Miss Shipton--had now perceived her peril and had
turned round, but she was overpowered, and he heard a shriek for help.
Raising himself out of the water as far as he could, he called out and
signalled to her not to go dead against the tide, or even to try and
return, but to go on and edge her way to its margin, and so make for the
point. This she tried to do, but her strength began to fail--the drift
was too much for her. Meanwhile Robert went after her. He was one of
the best swimmers in Perran, but when he felt the cooler, deeper water,
he was suddenly seized with a kind of fainting and a mist passed over his
eyes. He looked at the land, and he was in a moment convinced he should
never set foot on it again. He was on the point of sinking, when he
bethought himself that if he was to die, he might just as well die after
having put forth all his strength; and in an instant, as if touched by
some divine spell, the agitation ceased, and he was himself again. In
three minutes more he was by Susan's side, had gripped her by the
bathing-dress at the back of the neck, and had managed to avail himself
of a little swirl which turned inwards just before the rocks were
reached. They were safe. She nearly swooned, but recovered herself
after a fit of sobbing.

"I owe you my life, Mr. Trevanion; you've saved me--you've saved me."

"Nonsense, Miss Shipton!" He hardly knew what to say. "I would not go
so near the tide again, if I were you. You had better get back to the
machine as soon as you can and go home. You are about done up." So
saying, he ran away to the place where he had left his coat, and went up
into the town, thinking intently as he went. Very earnestly he thought;
so earnestly that he saw nothing of Perran, and nothing of his
neighbours, who wondered at his dripping trousers; thinking very
earnestly, not upon his own brave deed, nor even upon his strange attack
of weakness, and equally strange recovery, but upon Miss Shipton as she
stood by his side at the rock very earnestly picturing to himself her
white arms, her white neck, her long hair falling to her waist, and her
beautiful white feet, seen on the sand through the clear sun-sparkling
water.

Robert Trevanion, although brought up in the same school of philosophy as
his father, belonged to another generation. The time of my history is
the beginning of the latter half of the prese