"Yes, but I tell you I felt awfully squeamish when I saw you in the water and thought I might be too late."
As they neared the house, Roy's pace slackened.
"Go on, Dudley, and leave me, I can't get on, I believe that horrid old asthma is coming on, I'll follow slowly."
"I'm not quite such a cad," was Dudley's retort, and then hoisting Roy up on his back, as if that mode of proceeding was quite a usual occurrence, he made his way into the house.
They crept up to their bedrooms and changed their wet clothes before they showed themselves to any one. Then Dudley waxed eloquent for the occasion, and the story was told in drawing-room and servants' hall, till every one was loud in their praises of the little rescuer.
"He looks too small to have done it," said Miss Bertram, smiling; for though Roy was Dudley's senior by two months, he was a good head shorter.
Roy got rather impatient under this adulation.
"Oh, shut up, Dudley, don't be such an ass, as if I could have done anything else!"
An hour after, and Roy was sitting up in bed speechless and panting, with the bronchitis kettle in full play, and nurse trying vainly to battle with one of his worst bronchial attacks.
"I say "—he gasped at last; "do you think—I'm going to die—this time?"