guide small craft into the harbour were well in the channel, and that at least twenty yards this side of them the ebb would be felt, and with such force that no woman could make headway against it.  Suddenly he saw that her course was deflected to the left, and he knew that unless some help could arrive she would be lost.  In an instant his coat, waistcoat, and boots were off, and he was rushing over the sandy shallows, which fortunately stretched 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.