"I had to put on just what I could find," she stammered, "so please don't look at me." There hung drying above the fire on a clothes' line a wet skirt, which still steamed, and near it a draggled rag, which was the light cotton blouse she had been wearing that day. "You were upset!" he exclaimed, hardly able to master his horror. She tried to shrug her shoulders indifferently, but looked rather piteous as she did so. "Upset?" she said; "well, what of that? I simply swam ashore." "In those clothes?" he asked. "What woman could ever swim in clothes?" "Good gracious!" she exclaimed, with her eyes still on the floor; "why not? The things I could do without I left in the boat.... To-morrow they will turn up somewhere." "Now, child, tell me all about it," he urged. "What am I to tell you?" she replied. "You will only scold me;" and her lips curled saucily. "I promise I won't," he assured her. "Then, here goes," she said, and fetched a deep breath as if to gain courage for the task. "When I found, all at once, that I had got into the current, and saw that with one wretched oar I couldn't get out again, I thought to myself, 'God's will, be done. At any rate, you will enjoy the beautiful evening till some one comes to pick you up;' but no one came. But I didn't mind that either. It was really so wonderful to see reeds and banks rushing by. It was like being in the middle of fairyland." She paused and looked up at him with great scared eyes, as if she suddenly recollected to whom she was speaking. Then she devoted herself to the kettle, raised the lid, and blew the flames. "Why don't you go on?" he insisted on knowing. "I can't," she said softly. "You _will_ look at me all the time." "I'll look the other way," he said. Then she resigned herself to fate and continued-- "After it had lasted half an hour and more, it began to bore me. I had no place to rest my feet on, for the water splashed about at the bottom of the boat. When the houses of Newferry came in sight I thought to myself, now my troubles will end, and I called out and yelled at the top of my voice, but all in vain. The hole is called Newferry, but not a sign of a ferry-boat was to be seen anywhere. Well, then I simplified matters by jumping into the water." "Girlie, you must have been possessed by a demon," he cried, half angry, half laughing. "So the people thought in the village," she replied; "because when I bobbed up at the dyke they all ran away from me. It was a good thing that I happened to know the people at the inn. They used to rent our ... that is to say ... _the_ public-house at Halewitz." He mentioned the name that occurred to him. Yes. Buttkus; that was it. And then she told him of the miserable plight she had found the house in. The woman lay in bed delirious from fever; the landlord in desperation had resorted to the brandy bottle.