The colonel merely coughed behind his buckskin glove. He did not think much of secretaries, and shared Jack Cade's opinion in regard to the professors of the arts of reading and writing. Just then Lady Caroline approached the bank.
"Colonel, are you inclined to back the service in general and your own regiment in particular? Mr. Patey and I are going to have a race. Of course he gives me a long start. Will you bet?"
"Too delighted to have the chance of losing," said the colonel with old-fashioned gallantry. "And I'll give odds, too--a dozen pairs to half-a-dozen.--Patey, sustain the credit of the corps in every particular."
"Depend on me, colonel," said Mr. Patsy, a long-limbed lieutenant of untiring wind. "Mr. Boyd, take Lady Caroline to her place, and then start us."
Walter Joyce had heard none of this colloquy. He had joined Mr. Biscoe, with whom he had formed a great friendship, and was showing him how to shift from the outer edge of an "eight," and shoot off into a "spread eagle,"--an intricate movement requiring all your attention,--when he heard a sharp crack, followed by a loud shout. Without a word they dashed off to the other end of the lake where the crowd was greatest. Joyce arrived first. What he saw was a large pool of water where ice had been; floating on it a small round velvet cap trimmed with fur. He looked hastily round. She was not there--then he knew what had occurred.
At that instant his arm was seized by Mr. Biscoe, who whispered--
"Wait, man! They're fetching the rope!"
"Stand back," he cried, "it'd be too late! Let me go!" and the next instant he was diving beneath the floating fragments of the ice.
"It was as near as a toucher," Mr. Boyd said; and he was right. When they pulled him in, Joyce's arm, which had been wound round Lady Caroline, had nearly given way, and the hand with which he had clung to the ice-edge was all bruised and bleeding. Just as they were lifted on shore he thought he saw her lips move. He bent his head, and heard one word--"Walter!"--then he fainted.