His Other Wife: A Novel — page 200: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

192 SERPENT AND DOVE. weaving, Vernois had not observed that the swift down- ward tide had carried the little boat very far below where it was safe for so small and light a vessel to go. Nor had he taken the least thought of the mingling currents with which he would have to contend in his attempt to row the boat up the stream. Although a capital swimmer, he was physically too weak to battle long with the strong eddies that now circled round him and the limp white burden that he had caught and bore fast clasped in his left arm, Fortunately, the shock of the cold wave and that of her terror had rendered Faith quite unconscious, so that he had no mad struggles to impede his efforts to save her. Besides this, he was a man of wonderful nerve and presence of mind. The more extreme the occasion, the more cool and steady his brain. Danger sobered him in“ his wildest excesses. Keeping Faith's head well out of the water, he looked about him. It was ebb tide, and the currents were swift and strong toward the sea that lay scarcely a mfile beyond. To try to stem them by.swimming up stream with his lifeless burden was not to be thought of—to make his way to the nearest bank seemed almost as impossible. Straining his gaze seaward, he caught the gleam of a sail, touched by the bright rays of the setting sun. Some fishing craft returning to shore, he surmised; and, delib- _ Eomicbooks.¢o =