Filled with foreboding which trembled on the verge of certainty, I swam for the shore. The distance was short, and presently I was struggling up the slippery mud bank with the senseless form of the girl. My mind had been busy while I was swimming. Should I stop on shore and attempt resuscitation, or should I hurry on to the priest's house, just up the hill? I decided on the latter course as the most expedient, as the delay would be practically nothing, and proper restoratives could be had at the house. There probably was a road. Straight up the wooded slope I dashed. My exertions in the water had tired me, and now as I made my way through the dense undergrowth up the steep hill I was conscious of intense physical fatigue. But I pressed grimly on, with a dread in my heart which far outweighed any physical weakness. At length I reached a rail fence. How I surmounted it with my burden, I do not know. Beyond the fence was a pasture lot with only a gentle incline, and across this I raced. Another fence, the back yard of the parsonage, wherein squalling chickens fled precipitately as I tore by, around the house to the front porch, where sat a little old man in a swinging chair, clad in a priest's robe. I knew it was Father John. He was quietly reading, and smoking a meerschaum pipe with a stem as long as my arm, but the sound of my feet aroused him, and he raised his head. "_Mon Dieu!_" he exclaimed, jumping up, dropping his book, but holding to his pipe, which he waved wildly. "In ze name of heaven, m'sieu! What was it zat has happen?" The front door stood open, and I rushed into the house without replying. A couch was in the hall, and on this I laid the form of the girl. Father John, his wrinkled face stamped with terror and anguish, was beside me in an instant. "Madonna! Jesu!" he wailed. "My blessed Bereel!" I began the treatment for the drowned, explaining hurriedly how the accident had occurred. "Call your housekeeper!" I added. "Her clothes must be loosened. Quick! If no doctor is near there is no use sending. I know what should be done. Bring brandy, or whiskey--hurry!" Father John ran from the hall crying at every step: "Marie! Marie! Marie!" His tremulous voice receded in the rear. I unfastened the girl's belt, tore open her clothing at the waist, and as I worked feverishly, was conscious of a gaunt, austere woman of fifty-five or sixty suddenly falling on her knees at my side, and unhooking the tight corset which my rude haste had exposed. Thereafter we worked together, in silence, moving the arms up and down and striving for artificial respiration. Father John hovered just out of reach, an uncorked flask in one shaking hand; the long stemmed pipe, which he had never abandoned, in the other. In the stark silence which accompanied our efforts I could hear him whispering incoherent but fervent prayers in his native tongue.