Certainly Margaret Hayley saw nothing antagonistic to romance in that tall, erect figure, half-draped though it was and shivering yet with cold and weakness. It is not impossible that the dusky brown of the face glowed with something of a sacred light, to her eyes--a subject for her waiting hero-worship, after that sad feeling of an opposite character which it had so lately been her duty to manifest. Nothing else than such an estimation could well explain, in a woman of her overweening pride, movements which took place immediately after, and which bore their fruit, at no distant day, in placing her in a position of such terrible conflict with herself that no calamity occurring beneath the waters of the Pool but might have been reckoned a mercy in comparison. Halstead Rowan, too sure of his admiration of the conduct of his new friend to be in a hurry about expressing it, had done what his wounded hand did not prevent his doing, by springing across the stream below and bringing the discarded shoes and coat from the rock where they lay. All the rest, except poor Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, yet busy with her partially resuscitated boy, crowded round the new hero of the hour to offer their thanks and congratulations; but it was Margaret Hayley who took him by the hand as he stood, unmindful of the scowl of Captain Hector Coles that gloomed upon her, and said: "I do not know, sir, by what name to thank you--" "I believe I am right in calling you Miss Hayley," was the answer, in a voice as yet somewhat weak and tremulous. "My own name is Horace Townsend, and my business is that of a lawyer at--at Cincinnati." So we, like those of the company who had noticed the initials without taking the trouble to possess themselves of the whole name by the arrival-book at the office, have the blanks filled at last, and may discard the use of the two mysterious letters. "I was only half intentionally the means, Mr. Townsend," the young girl went on, "of plunging you into a situation of danger without the least right to do so; and yet I do not know that I _can_ be sorry for the liberty I have taken, as it may have been the cause of saving a life that would otherwise have been lost, and of my witnessing an act of disinterested generosity which I can never forget, or forget to honor, while I live." "You do me altogether too much honor," was the reply, in a somewhat steadier voice. "I have really done nothing, except to make an exhibition of myself by my weakness. There was no danger to me in the water, for I am a good swimmer and ought to be able to dive well; but I suppose that I stayed too long under, for I could not find the little fellow at once, and the chill of the water no doubt affected me, after getting warm in climbing over those logs. That is all, and I really hope you will all forget that the unpleasant affair has occurred, as I shall certainly do after I have found a suit of dry clothes."