For he felt curiously flurried and put about; near cursing himself
moreover for having helped to break up her high serenity thus. The whole
thing was manifestly impossible as he told himself, outside every
recognized law of Nature and sound science. Even during the mistrustful
phantasy-breeding watches of the night, when reason inclines to drag
anchor setting mind and soul rather wildly adrift, he had refused
credence to the apparent evidence of his own senses. Now in broad
daylight, the generous sunshine flooding him, the smooth river purring
and glittering at his feet, belief in grim and ghostly happenings became
more than ever inadmissible, not to say quite arrantly grotesque. Yet
Damaris' version of those same happenings tallied with his own in every
point. And that her conviction of their reality was genuine, profound
indeed to the point of pain, admitted neither of question nor of doubt.




CHAPTER VII

A CRITIC IN CORDUROY


William Jennifer, who successfully combined in his single person the
varied offices of ferryman, rat-catcher, jobbing gardener, amateur
barber, mender of sails and of nets, brought the heavy, flat-bottomed
boat alongside the jetty. Shipping the long sweeps, he coughed behind his
hand with somewhat sepulchral politeness to give warning of his presence.

"Sweethearting--lost to sight and hearing, espoused to forgetfulness," he
murmured, peering up at the two cousins standing in such close proximity