I mean--oh, of course, it's the same thing, isn't it ?" And she laughed, the shrill, choking laughter of overwrought nerves.
Garth observed her narrowly.
"No, I've very much alive, thanks," he said, speaking in deliberately cheerful and commonplace accents.

"But you look half frozen.

Why on earth didn't you put the rug round you?
Get into the boat and let me tuck you up." She obeyed passively, and in a few minutes they were slipping over the water as rapidly as the mist permitted.
Sara was very silent throughout the return journey.

For hours, for an eternity it seemed, she had been in the grip of a consuming terror, culminating at last in the conviction that Garth had failed to make the further shore.

And now, with the knowledge of his safety, the reaction from the tension of acute anxiety left her utterly flaccid and exhausted, incapable of anything more than a half-stunned acceptance of the miracle.
When at last the Selwyns' house was reached, it was with a manifest effort that she roused herself sufficiently to answer Garth's quiet apology for the misadventure of the afternoon.
"If it was your fault that we got stranded on the island," she said, summoning up rather a wan smile, "it is, at all events, thanks to you that I shall be sleeping under a respectable roof, instead of scandalizing half the neighbourhood!" She paused, then went on uncertainly: "'Thank you' seems ludicrously inadequate for all you've done--" "I've done nothing," he interrupted brusquely.
"You risked your life--" An impatient exclamation broke from him.
"And if I did?
I risked something of no value, I assure you--to myself, or any one else." Then he added practically-- "Get Jane Crab to give you some hot soup and go to bed.