It is awkward to kick off one’s shoes and divest oneself of unnecessary clothing in the water, and Agatha laughed at herself as she did it.  “Not exactly a bathing suit, but this one black skirt will have to do.  The others must go.  It was my skirts that caused the mischief with the rope at first.  And I was scared!”

“You had a right to be.”  Jim helped her keep afloat, and presently he saw that, freed from the entanglement of so many clothes, she was as much at home in the water as he.  Suddenly she turned to him, caught by some recollection that almost eluded her.

“I don’t think we are anywhere near the middle of the Atlantic,” she said thoughtfully.  James was silent, eating the bitter bread of despair, in spite of the woman’s brave wish to comfort him.  They were swimming slowly as they talked, still hoping to reach the yacht.  They rose on the breast of the waves, paused now and then till a quieter moment came, and always kept near each other in the pale blue darkness.

“Old Sophie said something—­that some one had tampered with the wheel, I think.  At any rate, she said we’d never get far from shore with this crew.”

James considered the case.  “But even suppose we are within a mile or two, say, of the shore, could you ever swim two miles in this heavy sea?”

“It is growing calmer every minute.  See, I can do very well, even swimming alone.  It must be near morning, too, and that’s always, a good thing.”  There was the shadow of a laugh in her voice.

“Morning?  That depends,” growled Jim.  He was being soothed in spite of himself, and in spite of the direfulness of their situation.  But bad as the situation was, and would be in any case, he could not deny the proposition that morning and daylight would make it better.

“But aren’t you tired already?  You must be.”  James turned closer to her, trying to read her face.  “It was a long night of anxiety, even before we left the boat.  Weren’t you frightened?”

“Yes, of course; but I’ve been getting used to frights of late, if one can get used to them.”  Again there was the laugh in her voice, under all its seriousness, even when she added:  “I’m not sure that this isn’t safer than being on board the Jeanne D’Arc, after all!”

It was characteristic of James that he forebore to take advantage of the opening this speech offered.  The possible reason of her abduction, her treatment on board the yacht, her relation to Monsieur Chatelard—­it was all a mystery, but he could not, at that moment, seek to solve it.  Her remark remained unanswered for a little time; at last he said:  “Then the Jeanne D’Arc must have been pretty bad.”

“It was,” she said simply.