Why had she let him go?
What did it matter if people talked--what was a tarnished reputation to set against a man's life?
Oh! She had been mad to let him go! The fog grew denser.

Strain as she might, she could no longer see the dark head above the water, the rise and fall of his arm like a white flail in the murky light, and she realized that should exhaustion overtake him, or the swift-running current beat him, drawing him under--she would not even know?
A sickening sense of bitter impotence assailed her.

There was nothing she could do but wait--wait helplessly until either his return, or endless hours of solitude, told her whether he had won or lost the fight against that grey, hungry waste of water.

A strangled sob burst from her throat.
"Oh, God! Let him come back to me! Let him come back!" The creak of straining rowlocks and the even plash of dripping oars, muffled by the numbing curtain of the fog, broke through the silence.
Then followed the gentle thudding noise of a boat as it bumped against the jetty and a voice--Garth's voice--calling.
She rose from the ground where she had flung herself and came to him, peering at him with eyes that looked like two dark stains in the whiteness of her face.
"I though you were dead," she said dully.

"Drowned.