When Madame de Ferrier disappeared beyond the bushes I sat down and waited with my head between my hands, still seeing upon closed eyelids her figure, the scant frock drawn around it, her cap of dark hair under a hood, her face moving from change to change. And whether I sat a year or a minute, clouds had descended when I looked, as they often did in that lake gorge. So I waited no longer, but followed her.
The fog was brown, and capped the evening like a solid dome, pressing down to the earth, and twisting smoke fashion around my feet. It threw sinuous arms in front of me as a thing endowed with life and capable of molding itself; and when I reached my boat and pushed off on the water, a vast mass received and enveloped me.
More penetrating than its clamminess was the thought that Madame de Ferrier was out in it alone.
I tried one of the long calls we sometimes used in hunting. She might hear, and understand that I was near to help her. But it was shouting against many walls. No effort pierced the muffling substance which rolled thickly against the lungs. Remembering it was possible to override smaller craft, I pulled with caution, and so bumped lightly against the boat that by lucky chance hovered in my track.
"Is it you, madame?" I asked.
She hesitated.
"Is it you, monsieur?"
"Yes."
"I think I am lost. There is no shore. The fog closed around me so soon. I was waiting for it to lift a little."
"It may not lift until morning, madame. Let me tie your boat to mine."