Staring with horrified eyes at the swift and utter destruction of the _Rêve_, Ann shuddered uncontrollably. But for the unknown deliverer who had snatched her bodily from the doomed boat she herself would be struggling in that almost fathomless depth of water or, stunned by the savage drive of the motor-boat's prow, sinking helplessly down to the bottom like a stone. "Don't be afraid. You're all right." Again that strangely familiar note in the reassuring voice. Ann twisted round within the circle of the arms which held her and peered up at the face of their owner. A flickering gleam of light revealed a small white scar high up on the left cheek-bone. "You!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Is it you?" "Yes." She could detect a note of amusement in the voice that came to her through the dusk. "Your creed has proved false, you see. I expected nothing--and here I am with an altogether charming adventure." "I shouldn't describe it quite like that," she answered ruefully. "No? But then you've lost a boat, whereas I've gained a passenger. Our points of view are different." The arms which held her had not relaxed their hold, and she stirred restlessly, suddenly acutely conscious of their embrace. Instantly she felt herself released. "Will you be all right?" came in a cool voice. "Oh, yes--yes." Ann stammered a little. "This is a very steady boat, isn't it?"--wonderingly. "It's a motor-boat, that's why." Now that the uproar occasioned by the accident had died away, she could hear the soft purring of an engine forward. "Still, you'd better sit down," resumed the Englishman. "The Bacchanalian gentlemen in the boat which ran you down are still blundering about, and may quite probably cannon into us. And you don't want to take a second chance of being shot out into the lake." "Indeed I don't." She sat down hastily. "I--I don't really know how to thank you," she began haltingly, after a moment. Somehow she felt curiously shy and tongue-tied with this man. "Then don't try," he replied ungraciously. This was hardly encouraging, but Ann returned to the charge with determination. "I must," she said. "If it hadn't been for you I should certainly have been drowned." "Rather improbable," he answered--as indifferently as though it really mattered very little whether she were or not. "With so many people close at hand, some one would have been sure to fish you out. You'd have got a wetting--and so would your unfortunate rescuer. That's all. Still, I'm just as glad I saw what was going to happen. I prefer to keep a dry skin myself." "Oh! Then you would have jumped in after me?" asked Ann, with interest. He sat down in the stern of the boat, his arm on the tiller, and regarded her contemplatively. "I suppose so. A man has no choice when a woman chooses to go monkeying about in a boat and gets herself into difficulties." "'Monkeying about in a boat!'" repeated Ann indignantly. "I suppose you'll say next that I rammed my own boat and sank it!"