Walter Joyce had heard none of this colloquy. He had joined Mr. Biscoe, with whom he had formed a great friendship, and was showing him how to shift from the outer edge of an "eight," and shoot off into a "spread eagle,"--an intricate movement requiring all your attention,--when he heard a sharp crack, followed by a loud shout. Without a word they dashed off to the other end of the lake where the crowd was greatest. Joyce arrived first. What he saw was a large pool of water where ice had been; floating on it a small round velvet cap trimmed with fur. He looked hastily round. She was not there--then he knew what had occurred. At that instant his arm was seized by Mr. Biscoe, who whispered-- "Wait, man! They're fetching the rope!" "Stand back," he cried, "it'd be too late! Let me go!" and the next instant he was diving beneath the floating fragments of the ice. "It was as near as a toucher," Mr. Boyd said; and he was right. When they pulled him in, Joyce's arm, which had been wound round Lady Caroline, had nearly given way, and the hand with which he had clung to the ice-edge was all bruised and bleeding. Just as they were lifted on shore he thought he saw her lips move. He bent his head, and heard one word--"Walter!"--then he fainted. CHAPTER XVII. BECOMING INDISPENSABLE. "Master will be glad to see you, miss, in the library, if you please." "Very good, Wilson. Is Mr. Creswell alone?" "Mr. Radford, the agent from Brocksopp, have been with him for the last half-hour, miss; but he's on the point to go. I saw him getting on his gloves as I left the room." "Very good; tell Mr. Creswell I will be with him at once." The servant retired, closing the door behind her, and Marian was left alone with her mother. They were in what they had become accustomed to call "their own" sitting-room, with its bright chintz furniture and tasteful appointments, as Marian had described them in her letter to Walter. It was tolerably early morning, just after ten o'clock, and the sun lit up the garden and the grass-plot, from which the slight frost had not yet disappeared, though the snowdrops and the crocuses were already showing their heads in the flower-borders, while the ditch-banks of the neighbourhood were thick with promised crops of violets and primroses. Mrs. Ashurst, whose infirmities seemed greatly to have increased within the past six months, was sitting by the fire with her face turned towards the window, enjoying the brightness of the morning; but her back was turned to the door, and she had not caught the servant's message. "What was that Martha said, my dear?" she asked. "My hearing's getting worse, I think. I miss almost everything that's said now."