Under Brett Forrester’s tutelage, Ann’s progress in the art of swimming proceeded apace. Since his arrival at White Windows, the weather had been perfect—still, dewy mornings, veiled in mist, melting by midday into a blaze of deep blue skies and brilliant sunshine—and every day Ann and Mrs. Hilyard, accompanied by Forrester and very often by Robin in addition, might have been seen descending to Berrier Cove, the favourite bathing beach of the neighbourhood. Quite frequently, too, Lady Susan would join them in the water—she was an excellent straight-forward swimmer, though “without any monkey tricks,” as she regretfully acknowledged. On these occasions the Tribes of Israel would sit in a mournful row along the shore, watching the proceedings with concerned brown eyes. They themselves, individually and collectively, exhibited an unfeigned distaste for every form of aquatic sport which, Brett wickedly suggested, might be due to some subconscious atavistic emotion relative to the Red Sea episode. When they had suffered their adored mistress’s temerity in silence for as long as canine toleration could be expected to endure, one or other of them would lift up his voice in a long-drawn wail of protest, the others would immediately join in, and the chorus of howls continued to make day hideous until Lady Susan issued from the water and hurried into her tent to dress.

Punishment and persuasion proved equally futile as a corrective. Inexplicable though it appeared, their mistress apparently derived some obscure satisfaction out of the process of splashing about in the wet sea, and because they loved her they bore it as long as they could. But after the expiration of a certain time-limit nothing could quiet them except Lady Susan’s prompt emergence from the water.

Tony’s arrival had added yet another member to the bathing contingent. He seemed to have forgotten all his troubles, and entered with zest into any and every sort of amusement which Silverquay afforded. A letter Ann had received from Sir Philip was primarily responsible for this care-free attitude. “Keep Tony as long as you want,” the old man had written. “But you may tell the young fool he can come home when he likes. I shan’t bite his head off.” A slow, pleased smile had dawned on Tony’s face as Ann read out this particular extract from the letter. Quarrel as he and his uncle might, they were genuinely fond of each other, and although Tony would not for worlds have admitted it, the knowledge that Sir Philip was really seriously annoyed with him had weighed heavily on his mind.

Since the removal of this incubus he had reverted to his usual high spirits and, between them, he and Brett Forrester had “made things hum,” as he described it. Boating, bathing, and picnics had been the order of the day, and the latest proposal, emanating from Forrester, was that they should all dine one evening on board the Sphinx. The date had been fixed to coincide with a night of full moon, and the invitations included both Eliot Coventry and the two Tempests.

The former had taken but little part in the summer diversions inaugurated by Brett and Tony. Nevertheless, he had been persuaded into joining one of the picnics. On this occasion the hostess had been Lady Susan, and she had simply declined to accept his refusal.

“Man was not made to live alone,” she had assured him. “We know that by the Garden of Eden arrangements, it’s not the least use going against old-established custom, my dear man. So you’ll come, won’t you?” And somehow with Lady Susan’s kind, merry dark eyes twinkling up at him he had not been able to find the ungraciousness to refuse.

But when the occasion came he had contributed very little to the gaiety of nations. He left early, on the ground that he had an appointment to keep in Ferribridge, and Ann felt as though he had joined the party more in the capacity of a looker-on than anything else. She said as much to him a day or two later when he chanced to meet her in the village, executing household shopping errands, and they had walked home together.

“You are quite right,” he answered. “That’s what I am—a looker-on at life. I’ve no wish to be anything else.”

He no longer avoided her now, as he had been wont to do, and an odd sort of friendship had sprung up between them. But it was often punctuated by some such speech as the foregoing, and Ann felt that although he had sheathed the sword he was still armoured with a coat of mail. It was difficult to bring these almost brutal speeches, ground out of some long-harboured bitterness, into relation with the sweetness of that sudden, rare smile of his. The man was an enigma. He asked for friendship and then, when it was tentatively proffered, withdrew himself abruptly as though he feared it.

Brett Forrester proceeded along diametrically opposite lines. No nuances or subtle shades of feeling complicated life for him. He knew exactly what he wanted and went straight for it, all out, and Ann was conscious that she was fighting a losing battle in her effort to keep him at a distance. He had never, so far, made deliberate love to her, but there was a certain imperious possessiveness in his manner, a definite innuendo in his gay, audacious speeches which she found it very hard to combat. He seemed entirely oblivious of any lack of response on her part, and there was a light-hearted, irresponsible charm and camaraderie about him that was difficult to resist.

“What’s the matter with you this morning?” he demanded one day when Ann had successfully infused a little formality into her manner.

“Nothing. Why should there be?” she returned.

“No reason at all. Only you seemed to be emulating the stiffness of a ramrod, and I thought you must be getting frightened of me—rigid with fear, you know”—impudently.

What could any one do but laugh? It was useless to try and treat him with aloof dignity if he promptly interpreted it as a sign of fear.

“I don’t see anything in you to inspire terror,” Ann submitted.

“You don’t? Good. Then come along down to the Cove, and I’ll teach you a new stroke.”

And then, as though to contradict every opinion she or any one else might have formed of him, he was as painstaking and encouraging over the swimming lesson which ensued as though his whole reputation depended on her proficiency.

A day or two later, when Ann, accompanied by Tony and Robin, descended to Berrier Cove for her morning dip, it was to find the beach, at that time usually dotted about with bathers in vari-coloured bathing suits and peignoirs, deserted by all save the hardiest and most determined.

The weather had changed with all the abruptness with which the English climate seems able to accomplish such transitions. A strong gale of wind was blowing, and the placid blue sea which, even at high tide, had been lapping the shore very tranquilly throughout the last fortnight, was converted into a rolling, grey-green stretch of water, breaking at its rim into towering waves.

“It looks a bit too rough for you, Ann,” observed Robin, surveying the scene doubtfully, “I don’t think even your new-found prowess at swimming will be of much use to you to-day.”

“It would be all right once you’re through the breakers,” suggested Tony. “There’s a chap swimming out there, I see.”

He pointed to where a wet, dark head bobbed up and down like a cork beyond reach of the waves that reared themselves up to an immense height before they crashed down in a flurry of whirling foam on the beaten shore.

“Tough work, though,” replied Robin. “There’s the deuce of a current running over there, and Ann’s not an experienced enough swimmer to tackle a drag like that.”

Ann’s face had fallen. The idea of foregoing her daily plunge did not commend itself to her in the least.

“I don’t see why I can’t have a dip—just get wet, you know,” she remonstrated wistfully.

“You mustn’t think of such a thing!” came in quick, imperative tones. Startled, she turned round to find Forrester standing at her elbow, with Cara Hilyard beside him. Amid the hurly-burly of noise created by the breakers she had not noticed the sound of their approach.

“Do you hear?” he repeated. “You mustn’t think of bathing to-day.”

Ann’s head went up. The imperious speech, uttered as though it were a foregone conclusion that she would meekly obey its mandate, roused her to instant opposition.

“But I am thinking of it,” she replied, masking her irritation beneath an outward assumption of calm.

“I really don’t think you should,” said Cara persuasively.

“You’re not bathing to-day, are you, Mrs. Hilyard?” put in Robin quickly, a look of swift anxiety on his face.

She shook her head, smiling.

“No. I’m afraid I’m too big a coward.”

“I should rather put it that you’ve got too much sense,” returned Robin. “It really isn’t safe for any but a very strong swimmer to-day.”

“Safe!” exclaimed Brett, angrily, snatching at the last word and flinging it, as it were, in Ann’s face. “Of course it isn’t safe!”

“Then what’s the meaning of that?” asked Ann pertinently, pointing to the bathing suit he carried on his arm.

“Oh, I’m going in. It would take more than this bit of sea to drown me”—carelessly.

He was making no idle boast. As Ann well know, he was almost as much at home in the water as he was on land. And presently, when it had been decided that only the three men should risk the roughness of the breakers, she stood watching him with quiet, unstinted admiration as, timing his plunge to a nicety, he met a large billow as it rose, dived sheer through its green depths, and emerged into the comparatively smooth water on the further side before its white, curving crest could thunder down on to the shore.

Robin and Tony made but a brief stay in the water—the former curtailing the proceedings because he very much preferred the idea of keeping Mrs. Hilyard company where she sat in a fold of the rocks. Meanwhile Ann’s gaze was riveted enviously on Forrester’s sleek red head as it appeared and disappeared with the rise and fall of the swelling sea. He looked as if he were thoroughly enjoying the buffeting he was getting.

“I should like to go in—just for a few minutes,” she said discontentedly. There are few things that draw the genuine sea-lover more strongly than the longing to plunge into the tantalising, gleaming water and feel the rush and prick of it and its buoyancy beneath one’s limbs.

Cara looked up in dismay.

“You’re not thinking of going, after all?” she exclaimed. “Oh, don’t, Ann!”—urgently. “It’s really too risky to-day. If one of those big breakers knocked you down you wouldn’t have time to get up again before another came. I once saw a woman drowned just in that way. It was horrible. She was flung down by a huge breaker, and before she could pick herself up a second wave broke over her. She had no chance to get her breath. And there wasn’t any one near enough to help her. I saw it all happen from the cliff.” She shuddered a little at the recollection.

“And if one of those waves didn’t knock me down,” retorted Ann, “I should have the most glorious dip imaginable. Honestly, Cara”—coaxingly—“I wouldn’t do more than just dash in and out again.”

“Well, ask Robin what he thinks first,” begged Cara.

Ann shook her head.

“I’d much rather ask him after!” she answered whimsically, “In fact, I’m going to sneak into the water before he and Tony finish their respective toilettes.”

Without more ado she vanished into the tent which she usually shared with Cara, and in a very short space of time reappeared equipped for the water, the tassel of her jaunty little bathing-cap fluttering defiantly in the wind. Slipping out of her peignoir, she let it fall to the ground and emerged a slender, naiad-like figure in her green bathing-suit. She ran, white-footed, to the edge of the water and danced into the creaming foam of a receding wave, while Cara watched her with inward misgivings. Even from where she sat she could see how strong was the undertow—each wave as it retreated dragging back with it both sand and pebbles, and even quite large stones, in a swirling seaward rush against the pull of which it was difficult to maintain a footing. Ann, lithe and supple though she was, staggered uncertainly in the effort to retain her balance, her feet sinking deep into the shifting sand, as she turned to wave a reassuring hand to the solitary watcher on the beach.

And then it happened—the thing which Cara had foreseen must almost inevitably ensue. She had a momentary glimpse of the slim naiad figure swaying against a background of sea and sky, then a terrific wave towered up behind it, blotting out the horizon and seeming for an instant to stand poised, smooth and perpendicular like a solid wall of green glass. She saw Ann’s face change swiftly as she realised her danger, the upward fling of her arms as she tried to spring to the surface in an effort to escape the full force of the wave and be carried in on its crest. But it was too late. With a crash like gun-thunder the huge billow broke, and to Cara’s straining eyes it seemed that Ann’s light form was snatched up as though of no more moment than a floating straw and buried beneath a seething, tumbling avalanche of waters.

She sprang to her feet and ran towards the water, shrieking for help as she ran. But the noise of the sea drowned her cries so that neither Robin nor Tony, still dressing in one of the tents, heard anything amiss. Even as she called and shouted she realised the utter uselessness of it. No weak woman’s voice could carry against that thunderous roar. In the same instant, she caught sight of Brett’s head and shoulders in the distance, and she waved and beckoned to him frenziedly. With a choking gasp of relief, she caught his answering gesture before he turned and headed straight for the shore, shearing through the water with a powerful over-hand stroke that brought him momentarily nearer.

Though actually not more than a few seconds, it seemed to Cara an eternity before the huge wave which had engulfed Ann spent itself. Then, as it receded she discerned her figure struggling in the backwash, and as the girl at last dragged herself to her knees Cara rushed waist-deep into the foaming, eddying flood in a plucky effort to reach her. But, before she could get near enough, the suction of the retreating wave had swept Ann out of her reach and the next incoming breaker thundered over her again. Cara herself barely escaped its savage onslaught, and as she staggered into safety she turned a desperate, agonised face seaward. Brett was still some yards away, and Ann would die—die with succour almost at hand! Her own helplessness drove her nearly frantic. She was beating her hands together and quite unconsciously repeating Brett’s name over and over in a sick agony of urgency.

“Brett! Brett! God, let him come in time!... Brett! Brett! Brett!...”

The retreating wave revealed once more the slight girl-figure, spent and effortless this time, tossing impotently in the churning backwash. Forrester would be too late! A third wave would batter the life out of that fragile body. Cara’s voice died into a strangled sob of despair.

... And then came the sound of racing footsteps, something passed her like a flash, and the white spray flew up in a dense cloud as a tall figure hurled itself headlong into the sea. For an instant Cara could distinguish nothing but a dark blot and the blur of flying spume as it spattered against her face. Then, with a shaking cry of utter thankfulness, she saw Eliot Coventry come striding out from amid the maelstrom of surging waters, bearing Ann’s unconscious form in his arms.

He carried her swiftly beyond reach of the hungry, devouring waves and, laying her down on the sand, tore off his coat and placed it beneath her head. At the same moment Forrester reached the shore and raced towards them, and as Eliot straightened himself it was to meet the other man’s eyes blazing into his—savage, challenging eyes, like those of a tiger robbed of its prey. For an instant the two men remained staring straight into each other’s faces, while on the ground between them lay Ann’s slender, white-limbed body, limp and unconscious.

To Cara, hurrying towards them as fast as the wet skirts which clung about her would allow, the brief scene seemed like a picture flung vividly upon a screen. In that moment of fierce stress the innermost thoughts of the two men were nakedly revealed upon their faces—if not to each other, at least to the clear, unerring vision of the woman, who caught her breath sharply between her teeth in a sudden blinding flash of enlightenment.

The little group seemed to her symbolical—the two men standing face to face like hostile forces, with the young, girlish figure lying helplessly between them.