Standing, breathless, a pace or two apart, they saw Vane and the girl
appear from beneath the willows and wash away down-stream. The man was
swimming, but he was hampered by his burden, and once he and Mabel sank
almost from sight in a whirling eddy. Carroll said nothing. Turning, he
ran along the sloping ridge until the fall was less and the trees were
thinner; then he leaped out into the air. He broke through the alders
amid a rustle of bending boughs, and disappeared; but a moment or two
later his shoulders shot out of the water close beside Vane, and the two
men went down the stream with Mabel between them.

Evelyn scrambled wildly along the ridge, and when she reached the foot of
it, Vane was helping Mabel up the sloping bank of gravel. The girl's
drenched garments clung about her, and her wet hair was streaked across
her face, but she seemed able to stand. The hunt had swept on through
shoaler water, but there was a cheer from the stragglers across the
river. Evelyn clutched her sister, half laughing, half sobbing, and
incoherently upbraided her. Mabel shook herself free, and her first
remark was characteristic.

"Oh, don't make a silly fuss! I'm only wet through. Wallace, take me
home."

She tried to shake out her dripping skirt, and Vane picked her up, as she
seemed to expect it. The others followed when he pushed through the
underbrush toward a neighboring meadow. Evelyn, however, was still a
little unnerved, and when they reached a gap in a wall she stopped and
leaned heavily against the stones.

"I think I'm more disturbed than Mopsy is," she said to Carroll. "What I
felt must be some excuse for me. You were right, of course. I'm sorry