"I am very much obliged to you for what you have done for me," said the dripping maiden, who paid not the slightest attention to the condition of her clothing, and was wholly absorbed in her own thoughts, which were painful enough to give her face an expression of agony. "I hope you will not think I am ungrateful, Ernest Thornton." "I do not think so," I replied, astonished to find she knew my name. "And I shall be ever so much more grateful to you if you will take me away from this place," she added, with a beseeching look. "I really don't know what to do. You called me by name, just now, but I do not remember to have seen you before." "Perhaps you have not; but I have seen your boat so often that I feel acquainted with you." "May I ask you to tell me your name?" "I will tell you, but you will not know me any better. It is Kate Loraine," she replied, more calmly than she had yet spoken. I was certainly no wiser for what she told me, though I knew that Loraine was the name of the people who lived in the house nearest to the Point. "Who is the lady on the pier?" I asked. "Mrs. Loraine," answered she, with a visible shudder; though I could not tell whether it was caused by the mention of the lady's name, or by the cold chill of her wet condition. "Is she your mother?" I continued; and it seemed to me that her answer to this question would enable me to decide whether or not to land her on the pier. "No, no!" replied she, with the most decisive emphasis. "But your names are the same." "They are; of course she has my father's name." I could not see why that followed, but I did not like to carry my questions to the point of impudence. "Is your father at home?" "My father is dead," she answered, in a very sad tone. "Excuse me if I ask who the lady is that stands on the pier." "Mrs. Loraine." "And not your mother?" "No!" "You seemed to be running away from her when I heard you screaming." "I was; she was trying to catch me." Perhaps Miss Kate Loraine thought I was very obtuse, but I could not understand the relation between the parties, and I had not the faintest idea why she was running away from Mrs. Loraine. I was not willing to believe that a young miss like her intended to resort to such a desperate remedy as suicide for any real or imaginary sufferings. "What shall we do, Bob?" I asked, turning to my companion, completely nonplussed by the circumstances. "I don't know what to do. It seems to me we ought to return the young lady to her friends," replied he. "I have no friends," interposed Kate, and the tears started in her eyes; "at least I have none in Cannondale." "Don't you live at Mrs. Loraine's?" asked Bob. "Yes; but I shall live there no longer." "You say she is not your mother?" I added, returning to the point I had twice left. "She was my father's wife, but she is not my mother." "She is your step-mother," I continued, as the light flooded my dull brain.