Jim wondered whether she knew more about the crime of which she was the victim than he knew, or if she had discovered aught concerning it while she was a prisoner on the yacht.  Granting that her person was so valuable that a man of Monsieur Chatelard’s caliber would commit a crime to get possession of it, why should he have abandoned her when there was plainly some chance of safety in the boats?  He could not conceive of Monsieur Chatelard’s risking his neck in an affair of gallantry; cupidity alone would account for his part in the drama.  James went over and over the situation, as far as he understood it, but he did none of his thinking aloud.  It flashed on his mind that Miss Redmond must already have separated him, in her thoughts, from the other people on the yacht; though perhaps her trust was instinctive, arising from her own need of help.  How could she know that he had risked his neck twice, now, to follow the Vision?

Swimming slowly, with Agatha’s hand at times on his shoulder, James turned his mind sharply to a consideration of their present position.  They had been alternately swimming and floating, hoping to come upon the yacht.  The darkness of the night was penetrable, so that they could see a fairly large circle of water about them, but there was no shadow of the Jeanne D’Arc.  Save for the running surge of the waters, all was silence.  The pale forerunners of dawn had appeared.  Their swim after the boats of the Jeanne D’Arc had warmed their blood, so that for a while they were not conscious of the chill of the water.  But as the minutes lengthened, one by one, fatigue and cold numbed their bodies.  It was a test of endurance for a strong man; as for the girl, Jim wondered at her strength and courage.  She swam superbly, with unhurried, steady strokes.  If she grew chatteringly cold, she would start into a vigorous swim, shoulder to shoulder with James.  If she lost her breath with the hard exercise, she would take his hand, “so as not to lose you,” she would say, and rest on the breast of the waves.  The wind dropped and the sea grew quiet, so that they were no more cruelly buffeted, but rocked up and down on its heaving bosom.

Once, while they were “resting” on the water, Agatha broke a long silence with, “I wonder—­” but did not at once say what she wondered at.  Jim said nothing, but she knew he was waiting and listening.

“Suppose this should be the Great Gateway,” she said at last, very slowly, but quite cheerfully and naturally.  “I am wondering what there is beyond.”

“I’ve often wondered, too,” said Jim.

“I’ve sometimes thought, and I’ve said it, too, that I was crazy to die, just to see what happens,” Agatha went on, laughing a little at her own memories.  “But I find I’m not at all eager for it, now, when it would be so easy to go under and not come up again.  Are you?”

“No, I’ve never felt eager to die; least of all, now.”