After considerable splashing—­Hamilton urging her to remain calm—­he succeeded in bringing her to land, where they both struggled up the bank dripping wet and more or less exhausted.  Some moments elapsed before either spoke; until, indeed, Hamilton, looking straight into the girl’s face and bursting out laughing, exclaimed, “Well, I think I have the pleasure of being acquainted with you, but I must say that we both look like drowned rats!”

“I look horrid!” she declared, staring at him half-dazed, putting her hands to her dripping hair.  “I know I must.  But I have to thank you for pulling me out.  Only fancy, Mr. Hamilton—­you!”

“Oh, no thanks are required!  What we must do is to get to some place and get our clothes dried,” he said.  “Do you know this neighbourhood?”

“Oh, yes.  Straight over there, about a quarter of a mile away, is Wyatt’s farm.  Mrs. Wyatt will look after us, I’m sure.”  And as she rose to her feet, regarding her companion shyly, her skirts clung around her and the water squelched from her shoes.

“Very well,” he answered cheerily.  “Let’s go and see what can be done towards getting some dry kit.  I’m glad you’re not too frightened.  A good many girls would have fainted, and all that kind of thing.”

“I certainly should have gone under if you hadn’t so fortunately come along!” she exclaimed.  “I really don’t know how to thank you sufficiently.  You’ve actually saved my life, you know!  If it were not for you I’d have been dead by this time, for I can’t swim a stroke.”

“By Jove!” he laughed, treating the whole affair as a huge joke, “how romantic it sounds!  Fancy meeting you again after all this time, and saving your life!  I suppose the papers will be full of it if they get to know—­gallant rescue, and all that kind of twaddle.”

“Well, personally, I hope the papers won’t get hold of this piece of intelligence,” she said seriously, as they walked together, rather pitiable objects, across the wide grass-fields.

He glanced at her pale face, her hair hanging dank and wet about it, and saw that, even under these disadvantageous conditions, she had grown more beautiful than before.  Of late he had heard of her—­heard a good deal of her—­but had never dreamed that they would meet again in that manner.

“How did it happen?” he asked in pretence of ignorance of her companion’s presence.

She raised her fine eyes to his for a moment, and wavered beneath his inquiring gaze.

“I—­I—­well, I really don’t know,” was her rather lame answer.  “The bank was very slippery, and—­well, I suppose I walked too near.”

Her reply struck him as curious.  Why did she attempt to shield the man who, by his sudden flight, was self-convicted of an attempt upon her life?

Felix Krail was not a complete stranger to her.  Why had their meeting been a clandestine one?  This, and a thousand similar queries ran through his mind as they walked across the field in the direction of a long, low, thatched farmhouse which stood in the distance.