"Do you know the way?"
"There is no way. We shall have to feel for the shore. But Lake George is narrow, and I know it well."
"I want to keep near you."
"Come into my boat, and let me tie the other one astern."
She hesitated again, but decided, "That would be best."
I drew the frail shells together—they seemed very frail above such depths—and helped her cross the edges. We were probably the only people on Lake George. Tinder lighted in one boat would scarcely have shown us the other, though in the sky an oval moon began to make itself seen amidst rags of fog. The dense eclipse around us and the changing light overhead were very weird.
Madame de Ferrier's hands chilled mine, and she shook in her thin cape and hood. Our garments were saturated. I felt moisture trickling down my hair and dropping on my shoulders.
She was full of vital courage, resisting the deadly chill. This was not a summer fog, lightly to be traversed. It went dank through the bones. When I had helped her to a bench, remembering there was nothing dry to wrap around her, I slipped off my coat and forcibly added its thickness to her shoulders.
"Do you think I will let you do that, monsieur?"
My teeth chattered and shocked together so it was impossible to keep from laughing, as I told her I always preferred to be coatless when I rowed a boat.