"So you have no scruples about shocking me? Or is it that you think I am not easily shocked?"
"A little of both, I think," Mary replied with a sigh of relief. "The fact is, you are so strong and brave that you inspire confidence."
"Is that meant for a compliment, and do I have to feel grateful?" asked Katherine.
"That is as you please. But tell someone I must, or I think the miserable business will wear me out, for I cannot sleep. Katherine, I was nearly suicide and murderer too on that awful morning in the tide-hole."
"What nonsense! What will you be saying next?" cried Katherine with forced cheerfulness; but the colour faded from her cheeks.
"I am not talking nonsense, but unvarnished truth. I might have been saved easily enough, and Mr. Ferrars need have suffered no inconvenience save a wetting, but for my own fault; for he was there long before the water reached the place where I had fallen."
"But why——?" began Katherine, then stopped short, remembering that she did not want to ask questions, nor to seek information.
"But why wasn't I saved before, were you going to say?" said Mary. "Because I would not let myself be. The fact is, down at the bottom I am a coward, just that and nothing more. My life has been so sheltered and easy, too, that there has been nothing to stir into activity any latent bravery that I might have had. Mr. Ferrars could not reach me, or it is probable he would have pulled me from the ledge where I was lying by sheer force. As it was, he waited in the water for a long time, until the tide rose high enough for him to reach me. It was almost high enough; I realized that in another moment I should be dragged into the water, whether I would or no, and I just felt that I could not bear it: so I sprang up with a wild impulse to rush somewhere, anywhere—but I had forgotten my twisted ankle, the pain from which was so intense that I reeled, lost my balance, and was into the water all in a moment."
"Anyone might have felt like that, and acted just the same under the circumstances," said Katherine, pitifully. This confession was so utterly different from anything she had expected to hear that her heart grew lighter in spite of herself.
Mary laughed in a dreary, mirthless fashion. "Do you know it is a bitter humiliation to me to owe my life to Jervis Ferrars?" she said brusquely.