From out the Vasty Deep

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

In addition to Dr. Panton, two other people were really enjoying this uncomfortable walk, for Helen Brabazon and Sir Lyon Dilsford had plenty to say to one another. It was very seldom that Sir Lyon found a young woman interested in the subjects he himself had most at heart. He found it a curiously pleasant experience to answer her eager, ignorant questions on sociological and political subjects. It was clear that Miss Brabazon only regarded herself as the trustee of her vast wealth, and this touched her companion very much. Also, what had happened yesterday—that sudden, intimate confession of what had taken place in the hall—had made their relations to one another much closer. But neither of them had alluded to it again.

As for Lionel Varick and Bubbles Dunster, they were now lagging some way behind the others. More than once the girl suggested that she should slip away and go back to Wyndfell Hall alone, but her host would not hear of it. He declared good-humouredly that soon they would all be homeward bound; so, apathetically, Bubbles walked on, her feet and her head aching.

The old Roman embankment now formed part of the works connected with a big reservoir, and at last the walkers reached a kind of platform from whence they could see, stretching out to their right, a wide, triangular-shaped piece of water.

Blanche Farrow was for turning back; but Helen Brabazon, Sir Lyon, and Varick were all for going on, the more so that Varick declared that at a cottage which formed the apex of the reservoir they would be able to get some tea. So off they started again, in the same order as before, to find, however, that the narrow brick-way, instead of being drier—as one would have expected it to be above the water—was more slushy and slippery than had been the path running along the top of the older part of the embankment. Yet the steep bank leading down to the sullen, half-frozen surface of the reservoir had been cleared of the grass and bushes which covered the slopes of the rest of the causeway.

They had all been walking on again for some minutes when Donnington turned round. "Take care, Bubbles! It's very slippery just here."

"I'm all right," she called back pettishly. "Mind your own business, Bill. I wish you wouldn't keep looking round!"

Donnington saw Varick put out his right hand and grasp the girl's arm firmly; but even so it struck him that they were both walking too near the edge on the side to the water. Still, he didn't feel he could say any more, and so he turned away, and again began trudging along by the silent Tapster's side.

For a while nothing happened, and then all at once there occurred something which Donnington will never recall—and that however long he may live—without a sensation of unreasoning, retrospective horror welling up within him.

And yet it was only the sound—the almost stuffless sound—of a splash! It was as if a lump of earth, becoming detached from the wet bank, had rolled over into the deep water.

At the same moment, or a fraction of a moment later, Varick laughed aloud; it was a discordant laugh, evidently at something Bubbles had just said, for Donnington heard the words, "Really, Bubbles!" uttered in a loud, remonstrating, and yet jovial voice.