“Afraid?” she said. “What else? I thought I was slipping out into the big ocean. And the fog all round! It was like--like sitting alone with a lot of years. I thought of my sins!” “You can’t have many.” The words sprang from impulse, free admiration; he could have hammered out no compliments; but she willfully mistook him, and laughed his honesty aside. “Ah now, what a tongue you have!” And with a provoking smile, bending aside her look, she studied the smoky water that drew astern. Under the gray cardigan jacket, her slight, active body in the blue calico reminded him oddly of nacre shining in some uncouth shell, or of hazelnuts when frost has split the rough beard. A strange motive, as strong as it was new, forced him to say:-- “The first time I saw you--” All conclusion suddenly failed him. “Do you remember it?” “Remember?” Again, and more deeply, she watched the slow sweep of the current; and more deeply her blood tinted the sun-burned, oval face. She tossed her head with a little shake, more of impatience than of denial. “No, I--I can’t remember.” Disappointed, frustrated, he rowed for a space in silence, knowing that the full career of their speech had swerved awry. In a twinkling she had withdrawn to a lamentable distance. “But Jubilee?” persisted Miles. “And Terry, and the dog--what became--” “All sold,” answered the girl curtly. “When she died. Sold off. Poor little old Terry!” For a moment she sat alone with her thoughts; then suddenly lifting her head, listened. “What’s that?” Her tone was hard as business. “Do you hear it?” Miles heard, and not without anxiety. A steady, muffled puffing sound labored doggedly nearer through the fog. Against an ebb-tide that raced for the bay and open sea, he had rowed indifferently, his arms working, but his thoughts inclining to let the boat drift. In the charmed isolation of the fog, it had become, for the instant, a barge of glory, a shallop of dreams. Awake now, he recognized that the “back-eddy” which swept the shore toward Alward’s Cove had not yet seized their keel; that they were still in the channel; that the channel was none too wide, and the approaching noise none too far astern. He swung full power on his port oar. “What is it?” repeated the girl, peering over her shoulder. “Trim the boat,” he commanded. “Can’t tell. We’re all right.” But of this he felt by no means sure. The steady “puff-puff” throbbed more and more distinct, and with it came a wide whisper of rushing water. The vagueness of all direction told him that to shout, in this thick obscurity, would only alarm his passenger. He tugged mightily across the current, hoping for the sudden wrench of the counter-eddy. It did not grasp them. Instead, the noise fought closer, truculent and panting; the whisper of rushing surfaces widened and sharpened, more and more sibilant.