“Monsieur, I have overstepped the bounds of behavior in coming after you.  The case was too urgent for consideration of myself.  I must hurry back, for the count’s people would not understand my secret errand through the tunnel.  Will you show yourself at the house as soon as possible?”

I told her humbly that I would.

“But let me put you in the boat, madame.”

She shook her head.  “You may follow, after I am out of sight.  If you fail to follow”—­she turned in the act of departing and looked me through.

I told her I would not fail.

When Madame de Ferrier disappeared beyond the bushes I sat down and waited with my head between my hands, still seeing upon closed eyelids her figure, the scant frock drawn around it, her cap of dark hair under a hood, her face moving from change to change.  And whether I sat a year or a minute, clouds had descended when I looked, as they often did in that lake gorge.  So I waited no longer, but followed her.

The fog was brown, and capped the evening like a solid dome, pressing down to the earth, and twisting smoke fashion around my feet.  It threw sinuous arms in front of me as a thing endowed with life and capable of molding itself; and when I reached my boat and pushed off on the water, a vast mass received and enveloped me.

More penetrating than its clamminess was the thought that Madame de Ferrier was out in it alone.

I tried one of the long calls we sometimes used in hunting.  She might hear, and understand that I was near to help her.  But it was shouting against many walls.  No effort pierced the muffling substance which rolled thickly against the lungs.  Remembering it was possible to override smaller craft, I pulled with caution, and so bumped lightly against the boat that by lucky chance hovered in my track.

“Is it you, madame?” I asked.

She hesitated.

“Is it you, monsieur?”

“Yes.”

“I think I am lost.  There is no shore.  The fog closed around me so soon.  I was waiting for it to lift a little.”

“It may not lift until morning, madame.  Let me tie your boat to mine.”

“Do you know the way?”

“There is no way.  We shall have to feel for the shore.  But Lake George is narrow, and I know it well.”

“I want to keep near you.”

“Come into my boat, and let me tie the other one astern.”

She hesitated again, but decided, “That would be best.”

I drew the frail shells together—­they seemed very frail above such depths—­and helped her cross the edges.  We were probably the only people on Lake George.  Tinder lighted in one boat would scarcely have shown us the other, though in the sky an oval moon began to make itself seen amidst rags of fog.  The dense eclipse around us and the changing light overhead were very weird.

Madame de Ferrier’s hands chilled mine, and she shook in her thin cape and hood.  Our garments were saturated.  I felt moisture trickling down my hair and dropping on my shoulders.