"Now I'm going to launch the raft," he said. "Roll your clothes up inside your coat, so that nothing white will show, and wade out to me as soon as you are ready."
"Very well," she answered, in a low tone.
With his bundle under one arm, Stewart turned the box over and dragged it into the water. He had been shivering in the night air, but the water was agreeably warm. Placing his bundle upon the top of the box, he pushed it before him out into the stream, and was soon breast-deep. Then, holding the box against the current, he waited.
Minute after minute passed, but she did not come. He could not see the shore, but he strained his eyes toward it, wondering if he should go back, if anything had happened. So quiet and unquestioning had been her acceptance of his plan that he did not suspect the struggle waging there on the bank between girlish modesty and grim necessity.
But, at last, from the mist along the shore, a white figure emerged, dim and ghostlike in the darkness, and he heard a gentle splashing as she came toward him through the water. He raised his arm, to make certain that she saw him, then turned his head away.
Near and nearer came the splashing; then the box rocked gently as she placed her clothing on it.
"All right?" he asked, softly.
"Yes," she answered.
He turned to find her looking up at him from the level of the stream, which came just beneath her chin. The light of the stars reflected on the water crowned her with a misty halo, and again he read in her face that sweet and tremulous appeal for respect and understanding which had so moved him once before. It moved him far more deeply now; but he managed to bite back the words which leaped to his lips and to speak almost casually—as though situations such as this were the most ordinary in the world.
"Have you got a firm grip of the handle?"