She stood and faced him, and her features were just discernible in the dim
starlight. Anger rang in her voice. She stamped her foot.

"How dare you?"

"I haven't been spying on you," he explained. "I only recognized you a
couple of minutes ago. I was walking about--taking a stroll before
breakfast, you know."

"Oh!" she said, stonily.

"I'm dreadfully sorry to have intruded upon you," he continued, twirling
his cap nervously in his fingers while the breeze played through his
upstanding hair. "I didn't mean to--but I couldn't stand by and let you do
it. I couldn't, really."

"Do what?" she asked, still angry. Septimus did not know that beneath the
fur-lined jacket her heart was thumping madly.

"Drown yourself," said Septimus.

"In the pond?" she laughed hysterically. "In three feet of water? How do
you think I was going to manage it?"

Septimus reflected. He had not thought of the pond's inadequate depth.

"You might have lain down at the bottom until it was all over," he remarked
in perfect seriousness. "I once heard of a servant girl who drowned herself
in a basin of water."