"I am afraid it is," Katherine answered, lightly touching her father's face with her finger, and wondering if he were as unconscious as he looked.
Then she felt herself gently thrust to one side, and the voice of Jervis Ferrars said quietly: "Go and get into dry clothes as quickly as you can, Miss Radford. You can do your Father no immediate good, but you may easily catch pneumonia if you stop in this condition long. I am not really a doctor, but I have had a medical training, and I can do all that can be done in this case."
"Oh, how thankful we are to have you here!" said Mrs. Burton, who felt as if the wet unknown, who was shedding pools of dirty water on to her clean floor, was an angel sent straight from heaven to help her in her time of need.
But Katherine said nothing at all; she only stumbled to her feet in blind haste and hurried away, knowing that collapse into undignified babyish crying was inevitable, and anxious to get away to some place where she might be hidden from the eyes of the others. In that crowded little house there was not much chance of privacy, however, and when Katherine entered the bedroom, to change her wet garments and cry in peace, she was immediately set upon by the twins, who had been shut in there by their mother to be out of the way. The poor mites were so frightened and unhappy that Katherine had to put aside her own miseries in order to comfort them. Then by the time she was clad in dry garments she felt better and braver, so she went back to the other room with the tears unshed.
'Duke Radford still lay on the floor in blank unconsciousness, while Mrs. Burton was busy mopping up the dirty water which had run from the wet garments of the others.
"Mr. Ferrars has gone to get into dry clothes, and then he will see about putting poor Father to bed," Mrs. Burton explained. Then she burst into agitated thanksgiving: "Oh, Katherine, how fortunate that you brought him home with you, and how wonderful it is that there is always someone to help when most it is needed! Whatever should we have done to-day if we had had no one but the fisher people to help us?"
Katherine was silent, and before the eyes of her mind there arose the picture of that moment before the two big fragments of ice collided, the moment which enabled Jervis Ferrars and herself to get into the boat. But for that pause in the destruction of the ice island it was more than probable that neither she nor the stranger would have been there at all. Of this she said nothing. Nellie had quite enough to bear without being frightened by tragedies which had not happened.
"I am afraid we brought you in a fearful lot of water," Katherine said.
"It will soon be wiped up, and the floor none the worse. That poor Mr. Ferrars had no boots or stockings on; his feet were merely swathed in towels. I have sent Miles with warm water to help him put them comfortable; and now there is someone in the store. Dear, can you go? I don't know where Phil is."
"I will go. But what about Father?" Katherine asked, lingering.