Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/173

Rh as she clutched convulsively at the arm nearest hers. Two ashen faces looked blankly on each other! Despair was written on each—Hilda's and Gwyneth's.

"Oh, my wicked letter!" thought the former.

"How could I mistrust him?" murmured the latter.

All this in two seconds.

Hark! a cheer that rends the air. The report of the gun shakes the little vessel, causing the ladies to stop their ears—after the report is over.

"Time's up! Dingey's won!" a hundred voices are shouting. A rush now to the other side of the vessel. Gig climbs disconsolately on to the spar and regains the Mimosa.

"Hang him, I thought he was drowned. I could have caught him otherwise," growled the discomfited one, as he saw the victor on the other side, paddling to his yacht midst the plaudits of the onlookers.

"No, you would not have caught him," said the Mimosa skipper. "Not a man on board could dive under the ship as he did."

Somewhat disdainfully Hilda drew her arm away and looked coldly at Gwyneth, as though she would say, "What do you mean by touching me, minion?"

Gwyneth heaved a sigh of relief and looked out across the lake, thinking—

"What business had I to smile at him and he at me! I'll be very careful not to do it again."

The varied entertainments of the evening over, the visitors repaired to tents that had been pitched for their accommodation. Tom insisted upon "camping out" for the first time.

In the dead of night groaning, as of a man dying, awoke him.

"Good God! what's that?" he cried as he clutched the