She had climbed up the cliff by a gradual, roundabout path; and after Windham saw her, she had wandered on, lost herself for a while, and got back after both stage and boat had left, each party supposing she had gone with the other.

Windham found a row-boat and started back.  He knew nothing about boats; but the bay was very smooth, it was yet early, and he got across in due time.  As he neared the island he saw her, in her white dress, standing on the bluff, and looking out toward him.

Off the shore, rocks and bowlders stood thickly out of the water, and Windham threaded his way in among them, thinking nothing of those underneath.  The skiff was little better than an egg-shell, being built of half-inch cedar; and before he knew what had happened, the point of a sunken rock had cut through the bows, and the boat was filling with water.  With a landsman’s instinct, he stood up on a thwart; the boat tipped over and went from under him.  In the effort to right it, he made a thrust downward with one of the oars, but found no bottom; and the next minute Agnes saw him clinging to the side of a steep rock, with only his head and shoulders out of water.

She did not cry out; but after he had struggled vainly to get up the rock, and found no other support for foot or hand than the one projection just above him, by which he held, he looked toward her as he clung there out of breath, and saw her eagerly watching him from the water’s edge.  And her voice showed the stress of her feeling, though it was quite clear when she called: 

“Can’t you climb up?”

“No, there is nothing to hold by.”

“Can you swim?”

“No.”

She looked all about, then back to him.  There was no one in sight; the island was out of the lines of communication, and a point just north of them shut off the open water.  But she saw that the reef to which Windham clung trended in to the shore a little way off, and she called: 

“I think I can get out to you—­keep hold till I come.”

She ran along the beach, but not all the way.  As soon as she was opposite a part of the reef that seemed accessible, she walked straight into the water, and made her way through it, though it was two or three feet deep near the rocks.  He saw her clamber upon them and start toward him, springing from one to another, wading across submerged places, climbing around or over the higher points.  And even there, in his desperate plight, as he watched her coming steadily toward him, her eyes fixed on the difficult path, and her skirt instinctively gathered a little in one hand, the sight of her fearless grace thrilled through him, and filled him with despairing admiration.

She came presently to the edge of a wider gap with clear water beneath, and paused for an instant.  Windham called out: 

“Don’t jump; you’ll be lost!”

She looked at him a moment, studied the rocks again, stepped back, then forward quickly, and sprang across.  She slipped and fell, but got to her feet again, and came on as before.  She went out of Windham’s sight, but in another minute he heard a rustle above him, looked up, and saw her standing very near the edge, and looking down at him, panting a little, but otherwise calm.