She raised her face and looked into his eyes.

'It is very easy for you to speak like that,' she said; 'but I know that
if it were not for you at this moment my poor body--' She sobbed and
turned to the sea, with something of its terror and desolation in her
face, and Done understood the grim idea that possessed her.

'Thank God, it was not to be!' he said; and he felt more deeply at that
moment than he had done for many years.

Lucy Woodrow remained silent, leaning upon the gunwale with her face to
the sea, and he noticed presently that she was weeping, and was silent
too. When she spoke again the new feeling in her voice startled him.

'Why did you save me?' she asked in a passionate whisper.

'Why?' He was full of wonder, and repeated the interrogation vaguely.

'Yes, why--why? You had no right!'

'Is it a matter of right?' he asked, stunned. 'I saw you fall. I don't
know why I jumped over. My next conscious action was of striking out in
the water. The act was quite involuntary.'

'You had no right!' Her voice was very low, but instinct with a grief
that was tragic.

'Tell me what you mean.' Unconsciously, he spoke in the soothing tone one
adopts towards an injured child.