He paused, and said no more, as, with her following fast at his heels, he hurried up the brae which hid the further reach of the lake. So, being a step or two ahead, and several inches taller than she was, a view halloo, followed by a laugh, was her first intimation that the search had come to an end. The next instant she had joined the laugh, for a more ridiculous sight than the Reverend James Gillespie presented as he stood up, in full clerical costume, on an uneven rock some two feet square, in the very middle of the loch, could scarcely be imagined. The cause, however, was clear in the half-sunk, water-logged boat, jammed on a jagged rock, which was just visible above the water close by. "Have you been there long?" called Paul, recovering himself. "All the afternoon," came back in hoarse and distinctly cross tones. "I shouted till I could shout no more. I thought you had all gone home!" "Gone to sleep," remarked Paul, aside, as he sate down and began deliberately to unlace his boots. "Now, Miss Carmichael, if you will look after the tea, I'll rescue the shipwrecked mariner, and bring him to be comforted." Marjory, eyeing the stretch of black water nervously, suggested he had better wait for Will to turn up; but Paul laughed. "I'm relieved to find you have some anxiety left for me--yet it is really absurd. I could swim ten times the distance ten times over; besides, I'll bring him back with the oars if that will satisfy you?" She felt that it ought, yet as she turned to leave him, the keen pang at her heart surprised her, and not even his gay call of reassurance, "Two teas, please, hot, in ten minutes," given, she knew, from such kindly motives, availed to drive away a sudden thought of that gracious face--drowned--dead--drowned. Such irrational fears, when they come at all, come overwhelmingly; since the mind, imaginative enough even to admit them, is their natural prey. Yet this very imagination of her own was in itself startling to the girl, who caught herself wishing she had not sung the "Lorelei," with a sort of surprised pain at her own fancifulness. It was absurd, ridiculous, and yet the sight of Will's loose-limbed figure coming to meet her, brought distinct relief as she bade him go on and help Captain Macleod. Even so, as she blew at the fire and made the tea, the thought would come that a man who could not swim would be of no possible use if--if--if---- So, in the midst of her imaginings, came at last the sight of three figures striding down the brae, talking and laughing; at least, two of them were so engaged, the Reverend James having scarcely recovered his temper, and being, in addition, almost quite inaudible from his previous efforts to make himself heard.