Sir Lyon looked at him quickly. "I thought Donnington turned round and missed her?"
"Donnington must have heard me call out." Varick was lighting a cigarette, and Sir Lyon saw that his hand shook; "and yet when I saw her roll down the bank I was so paralyzed with horror that my voice seemed to go."
He looked appealingly at his friend Panton.
"Yes, I can well understand that," said the doctor feelingly. "I have known shock close the throat absolutely." He added: "Did you see her sink and rise again twice before Donnington got at her, Varick? I have always wondered whether drowning people always come up three times—or if it's only an old wives' tale."
"Yes, no, I can't remember—"
Varick put his hand over his eyes, as if trying to shut out some dreadful sight. Then he groped his way to a chair, and sat down heavily.
"I say, Varick, I am sorry."
Dr. Panton looked really concerned. "We've been thinking so much of Miss Bubbles and of her rescuer that we have forgotten you!" he exclaimed.
Their host leant forward; he buried his face in his hands. "I shall never forget it—never," he muttered brokenly. "The horror that seized me—the awful feeling that I could do nothing—nothing! I felt so absolutely distraught that I seemed to see myself, not Bubbles, floating down there—on the surface of the water."
He looked up, and they were all, even Tapster, painfully impressed by his look of retrospective horror. Dr. Panton told himself that Lionel Varick was an even more sensitive man than he had hitherto known him to be.