She was beside him, now, swimming strongly. She gripped an arm of the unconscious Schuyler.... Together, she and Blake, dividing the weight, slowly, inch by inch, fought their way along the rope. At length they reached the side of the swamped knockabout.... Blake crawled upon its slippery deck. He lay for a moment, helpless; she supported Schuyler. Then he essayed to aid her again; and together they began to lift him out of the water, and to safety. Dr. DeLancey, from the after deck of "The Idlesse," had seen the accident. A minute later, he, John Stuyvesant Schuyler, Thomas Cathcart Blake, the captain of "The Idlesse," and two sailors were in the launch.... They reached the side of the knockabout as Blake and Kathryn were dragging Jack Schuyler from the water; and they took him into the other boat. Blake, in his father's clutch, followed. At the same time, Dr. DeLancey leaned over to grasp Kathryn. But she shook her head, and smiled, weakly: "No," she said. "I--I had to--to take off part of my clothes. I--" Dr. DeLancey was an old man; some assert that he fell overboard. However, be that as it may, when he came to the surface, he had his arm around Kathryn Blair, and she had his long coat draped around her slender figure.... And, as they lifted her to the deck, she fainted. [Illustration] CHAPTER SEVEN. AN INCIDENT. Destiny has a sense of humor; a sense of humor sardonic, it is true, cruel, sometimes grewsome; and yet it is a sense of humor. Otherwise-- There had been in France a man of the nobility--a man in whose veins flowed the blood of three kings--a man handsome of face, graceful of figure, debonair--a man who had sinned much, and who had paid for that sinning only in the sufferings of others; and they had been many. That man had many estates--many servants--many horses--much money. He had been to Brittany twice; and only twice. Yet he went a third time, and after five years. He went alone. He rode his horse through the narrow, brush-grown path by which had gone the stranger who had seen the naked girl, at the edge of the woodland pool, five years before. And he came, at length, to the edge of the wood, and to the clearing where lay the little hut, smoky, dirty, littered. He dismounted from his horse, there, why, he did not know. He went forward, to the hut. An old woman, bent, white haired, sat on a rude chair, in the sun, beside the door. She looked up as he approached. She, in no way, heeded the elaborate bow that he made--a graceful bow, low and sweeping, and yet a salutation sarcastic. "_Bon jour_, madame," he began. "Madame looks well; but Death is never far from the aged.... It should be a consolation," looking about him, casually, "for one who lives as madame." The shrivelled old woman made no answer. The man went on, evenly, the while tapping; with the end of his slender crop a booted leg: