When Jess returned to consciousness, she found herself back in the old Caldwell farmhouse, in her own bed-chamber, with Lucy bending over her.
“What is the matter? What has happened?” she exclaimed, with wide-open eyes staring into Lucy’s white face. But before a reply could be given, she cried out, shrilly:
“Oh, I remember it all—the water lilies, and Mr. Moore going for them because I dared him to—the accident, and how I tried to save him, for he could not swim—and how everything grew black around me when within but a few yards of the bank!”
“Mr. Moore turned the tables then, and saved you,” said Lucy. “You had brought him to wading depths; the rest was easy. It gave us all a terrible scare when he brought you in, dripping wet and white in the face as one drowned! And then he explained, in a word, almost, how it had all come about.”
“It was all my fault!” sobbed Jess. “Will he ever forgive me? I deserve that he should despise me to the end of his life. If he had died! Oh! oh! oh!”
“Never mind conjuring up such a possibility,” declared Lucy. “Be glad that he did not, and never send any human being into such danger again. I hope this will be a warning.”
“Don’t say any more,” sobbed Jess, pitifully. “Indeed, I feel bad enough over it. Will you tell him that for me, Lucy?”
The farmer’s daughter shrugged her shoulders. The turn affairs had taken was not at all to her liking. Jess and Mr. Moore were getting along altogether too famously in their friendship to suit her. They had not known each other twenty-four hours, and now Mr. Moore owed his life to the girl, and she, in turn, owed hers to him.
It was with some little trepidation that Jess entered the presence of Mr. Moore, late that afternoon. The feeling was so strong within her breast that he would hate her for sending him to the death which he missed so narrowly.
He held out his strong, white hand to her, with a grave smile which disarmed her fears at once.