“Ah, I remember it all so terribly! While Lenore sang, there came yet another gust of wind, and in it one of the ropes of the sail went loose, and the Seigneur must go to fix it. I sat between him and his lady, and as he jumped up, he put the tiller against my shoulder, and bade me not move till he came back. Lenore sat no more than four feet from me, on that side of the boat that was low in the wind. While she sang she had been playing with a ring that she had drawn from her finger. Just as monsieur sprang forward to the rope, Lenore dropped this ring, which methinks rolled into the water. I know that she gave a cry and threw herself far over the side and stretched out her hand for something. As she leaned, I followed her movement, and the tiller slipped its place. Ah, madame—madame—I remember not all the horror of the next moment! The boat went far over before a wave. Lenore lost her hold, and was in the water without a sound. The Seigneur, in a rage at me for letting the rudder slip, leaped back, and in an instant righted the boat, I screaming and crying, the while, in my woe. I know not how it was, but it seemed that, till we were started on our way again, Gerault never knew that—that his lady was gone. “Then what a scene! We turned the boat into the wind, the Seigneur saying not one word, but sitting stiff and still and white as death in the stern. The path of the wind had made a long rift in the fog, and through this we sailed, I calling till my voice was gone, the Seigneur leaning over, straining his eyes into that fathomless mist that walled us in on both sides. After that he drew off his doublet and boots, and would have leaped into the waves, but that I—_I_, madame—held him from it. I caught him round the arms till we were both forced to the tiller again, and I cried and commanded and shrieked at him till I made him see that his madness would bring no help. I could not guide the boat alone in the storm, nor could he have saved Lenore from the power of the water.