In response to which Mr. Carden-Cox tightened his grasp, reiterating—
"A rope! A rope!—Hoy!—A rope, I say! Put her about! Stop!"
The engines had been at once reversed, but the boat was going up stream, and some seconds had to elapse before actual movement in the opposite direction could begin. The current was pretty strong, carrying Nigel and his charge downward, despite his best efforts. Nigel was not a little impeded by his clothes. He had not waited even to throw off his coat; and Fulvia hung as a dead weight, seeming to be stunned by the double shock.
Then sense returned, and in a moment she was clinging to him with a convulsive grasp which threatened to sink them both.
"Let go, Fulvia!" He spoke in a sharp, clear voice. "Don't hold me! I'll take care of you."
Fulvia gasped for breath. They were almost under water; and though for an instant she obeyed, her hands clutched at him wildly again.
"Fulvie dear, you must not! Let go! You will drown us both. Keep still, and trust me."
He had done the business now. She clenched her hands together, and left herself to him like a log. That "Fulvie dear" settled the matter; yet the words meant nothing. Nigel hardly even knew what he had said. It was merely the instinctive recurrence at a critical moment to the old childish terms. Fulvia had always been his sister, "every inch as much as Anice or Daisy," he would have said. Nigel had never thought of her in any other light. But Fulvia could not realise this; for she did not think of Nigel as of a brother.
Nigel could keep himself afloat now, and hold up Fulvia, till the boat steamed near, and a rope was flung. The open loop fell upon them, and in another minute both were hauled in, and helped upward.
Fulvia; again scarcely conscious, was laid flat on the deck, streaming with water, her face white, her hair loose in heavy dripping masses. It had been much singed, and part of her skirt was reduced almost to tinder, yet her skin had escaped marvellously. One hand and arm only were scorched to any painful degree.