“I did not hear you come,” Katherine said.

“No, my footgear is not noisy, as befits a sickroom; but then my steps are not sprightly either, so you might have heard me slouching across the floor if you had not been so absorbed in the matter in hand.  What is it you want to tell me?” he asked, with a quick change of tone.

“You had better not go back to the house of Oily Dave again,” she began in a rather breathless style.

“Very much better not, I should say,” he answered.  “But why?”

“You have come to watch the fishing in the interest of Mr. Selincourt, have you not?” she asked.

“Yes, the old company complained of considerable leakage in profits, you see; indeed it was on this account that they decided the fleet was an unworkable scheme for a company, and were willing to sell to Mr. Selincourt.”

Katherine nodded, then said in a low tone:  “But your position will make you enemies, and I have been warned to-day that it is positively dangerous for you to remain in the house with that man.”

“Did this warning reach you before you came to rescue me this morning, or since?” he asked quickly.

“Since.  We did not even know that you were there.”

“Well, it is a comfort to know that, although I have enemies, I have friends too; for such a warning could have come only from a friend,” Jervis Ferrars remarked, frowning heavily.

“It was certainly meant in a friendly spirit, and, now you know, you will be careful,” she said, and there was more entreaty in her tone than she guessed at, for she was remembering how indifferent to danger he had seemed when she was trying to rescue him from the flood that morning.

“Yes, I shall be careful.  And, since to be forewarned is to be forearmed, thank you for telling me.  I suppose this accounts for the old rascal going off this morning with the key of the hotel in his pocket.”

“Did he do that?” she asked in a startled tone.

“Yes, I had been awake all night with the pain in my feet and in my limbs, and I was disposed to lie and sleep when morning came,” Jervis Ferrars replied.  “I heard him getting up very early, and asked him what was amiss, for I could hear a great row outside with the ice.  He said there was nothing to be afraid of, for his house stood too high ever to be caught in a flood; but he had left a boat in an awkward place and must go and look after it.  Then he went out.  I heard him lock the door when he was outside.  After that I went to sleep, and did not wake again until I heard you shouting, and found the water was nearly on a level with my bed.”

Katherine shuddered.  “It is too horrible even to think of!  We should not have known that anyone was in the house who needed saving, if it had not been for Mrs. Jenkin screaming so loudly from the other bank.”

“Then that is another friend; so apparently I have more friends than enemies after all, in which case I am not to be pitied,” he said lightly; then asked:  “Is that all the trouble—­I mean so far as it concerns me?”