Crouching still, she watched Keith bend to his oars, driving the boat’s nose beyond the shadowy yacht because he knew that he must allow for the current.  Her eyes devoured him, and her heart sang.  Plup-plup-plup-plup said the water.  The oars plashed gently.  Jenny saw the blackness gliding beside her, thick and swift.  They might go down, down, down in that black nothingness, and nobody would know of it....  The oars ground against the edge of the dinghy—­wood against wood, grumbling and echoing upon the water.  Behind everything she heard the roaring of London, and was aware of lights, moving and stationary, high above them.  How low upon the water they were!  It seemed to be on a level with the boat’s edges.  And how much alone they were, moving there in the darkness while the life of the city went on so far above.  If the boat sank!  Jenny shivered, for she knew that she would be drowned.  She could imagine a white face under the river’s surface, lanterns flashing, and then—­nothing.  It would be all another secret happening, a mystery, the work of a tragic instant; and Jenny Blanchard would be forgotten for ever, as if she had never been.  It was a horrid sensation to her as she sat there, so near death.

And all the time that Jenny was mutely enduring these terrors they were slowly nearing the yacht, which grew taller as they approached, and more clearly outlined against the sky.  The moon was beginning to catch all the buildings and to lighten the heavens.  Far above, and very pale, were stars; but the sky was still murky, so that the river remained in darkness.  They came alongside the yacht.  Keith shipped his oars, caught hold of something which Jenny could not see; and the dinghy was borne round, away from the yacht’s side.  He half rose, catching with both his hands at an object projecting from the yacht, and hastily knotting a rope.  Jenny saw a short ladder hanging over the side, and a lantern shining.

“There you are!” Keith cried.  “Up you go!  It’s quite steady.  Hold the brass rail....”

After a second in which her knees were too weak to allow of her moving, Jenny conquered her tremors, rose unsteadily in the boat, and cast herself at the brass rail that Keith had indicated.  To the hands that had been so tightly clasped together, steeling her, the rail was startlingly cold; but the touch of it nerved her, because it was firm.  She felt the dinghy yield as she stepped from it, and she seemed for one instant to be hanging precariously in space above the terrifying waters.  Then she was at the top of the ladder, ready for Keith’s warning shout about the descent to the deck.  She jumped down.  She was aboard the yacht; and as she glanced around Keith was upon the deck beside her, catching her arm.  Jenny’s triumphant complacency was so great that she gave a tiny nervous laugh.  She had not spoken at all until this moment:  Keith had not heard her voice.

“Well!” said Jenny. “That’s over!” And she gave an audible sigh of relief.  “Thank goodness!”