against her chin, alone in a blue world of sky and sea with no sound in her ears but the lift of waves and the occasional call of a gull high above her head. She turned on to her back with her face up to the sun, floating leisurely with thought just escaping her. It was a glorious day, and she was in a magic world of her own, with far-off sounds lulled by the whispering of waves and nothing but the sea beneath her.
A sudden, overwhelming consciousness of great depths pierced into her mind and fear was clutching at her heart almost in the next second, a fear out of the past reducing her to inexplicable panic. The surge of water in her ears became a roar, the roar of rain and the angry pounding of waves against a rock-bound coast. The mad desire in her to cry for help—for Noel’s help—was only silenced by instinctive action as she turned to strike out for the shore and safety, heedless of direction or of anything save that panic desire to feel solid earth under her feet. She had come much farther than she had thought; her strength began to flag long before she had reached the shallower water where the bay shelved to the sea bed, and she could feel her limbs beginning to ache with a strange, numb pain until they appeared to be dragging her down.
Strong as her will to live undoubtedly was, she could feel that first hopeless flagging of the spirit which sees only a vast expanse of water stretching away to infinity on every side, and something whispered treacherously that she would never make the shore.
“I must! I must!” Her lips formed the words, but the dead weight of her limbs would not lift. The quick, decisive strokes slowed almost to nothing and then she heard Noel’s voice from somewhere behind her.
“All right now, Anna! Turn on your back and leave the rest to me.”
She could not believe that she was safe, that Noel was really there, but she obeyed him instinctively, and in two long powerful strokes he had pulled ahead of her and was towing her slowly towards the rocks.
Even when they reached them she knew that their ordeal was far from over. There was a strong current running round the headland and it swept them steadily northwards. If they were carried beyond that point there was no knowing what might happen, she thought, and th is was all her fault ...
With an amazing effort she began to exert her numbed limbs, helping to fight the current, but they were carried helplessly away twice before a stupendous struggle on Noel’s part placed them beyond the flowing tide and they were in calm water at last.
The buffeting they had undergone had taken its toll of her strength, yet she was aware that something less easy to define had awakened most of the terror in her heart. It was the same fear that had precipitated her into that mad dash for safety, that crashing, rumbling roar of an angry sea and a relentless wind tangled up with memory trying to b reak through the barrier erected in her subconscious mind. It was the past pounding on the door of the present, the years that had gone demanding their share of the future and her own allegiance.
The swift temptation to let things go, to drift forever in this calm sea beyond the fury of the waves, assailed her for a moment, but she made the final effort and clambered on to the rocks without support, to collapse almost immediately at Noel Melford’s feet.
“Anna—!” He knelt down, taking her wet, limp body in his arms and began to massage life into her numbed limbs. “We’ve made it, my dear! There’s nothing to fear now.”
“No.” She could just see his dark head, the hair plastered against his brow, and the slope of his strong shoulders gleaming in the sun. “I’m all right. You—must think me an everlasting fool, but I was suddenly afraid out there—not afraid of the sea but of something the sea had done. It’s so difficult to explain—”
“Don’t try now,” he said briefly, the old gentleness back in his voice. “All that matters is
A sudden, overwhelming consciousness of great depths pierced into her mind and fear was clutching at her heart almost in the next second, a fear out of the past reducing her to inexplicable panic. The surge of water in her ears became a roar, the roar of rain and the angry pounding of waves against a rock-bound coast. The mad desire in her to cry for help—for Noel’s help—was only silenced by instinctive action as she turned to strike out for the shore and safety, heedless of direction or of anything save that panic desire to feel solid earth under her feet. She had come much farther than she had thought; her strength began to flag long before she had reached the shallower water where the bay shelved to the sea bed, and she could feel her limbs beginning to ache with a strange, numb pain until they appeared to be dragging her down.
Strong as her will to live undoubtedly was, she could feel that first hopeless flagging of the spirit which sees only a vast expanse of water stretching away to infinity on every side, and something whispered treacherously that she would never make the shore.
“I must! I must!” Her lips formed the words, but the dead weight of her limbs would not lift. The quick, decisive strokes slowed almost to nothing and then she heard Noel’s voice from somewhere behind her.
“All right now, Anna! Turn on your back and leave the rest to me.”
She could not believe that she was safe, that Noel was really there, but she obeyed him instinctively, and in two long powerful strokes he had pulled ahead of her and was towing her slowly towards the rocks.
Even when they reached them she knew that their ordeal was far from over. There was a strong current running round the headland and it swept them steadily northwards. If they were carried beyond that point there was no knowing what might happen, she thought, and th is was all her fault ...
With an amazing effort she began to exert her numbed limbs, helping to fight the current, but they were carried helplessly away twice before a stupendous struggle on Noel’s part placed them beyond the flowing tide and they were in calm water at last.
The buffeting they had undergone had taken its toll of her strength, yet she was aware that something less easy to define had awakened most of the terror in her heart. It was the same fear that had precipitated her into that mad dash for safety, that crashing, rumbling roar of an angry sea and a relentless wind tangled up with memory trying to b reak through the barrier erected in her subconscious mind. It was the past pounding on the door of the present, the years that had gone demanding their share of the future and her own allegiance.
The swift temptation to let things go, to drift forever in this calm sea beyond the fury of the waves, assailed her for a moment, but she made the final effort and clambered on to the rocks without support, to collapse almost immediately at Noel Melford’s feet.
“Anna—!” He knelt down, taking her wet, limp body in his arms and began to massage life into her numbed limbs. “We’ve made it, my dear! There’s nothing to fear now.”
“No.” She could just see his dark head, the hair plastered against his brow, and the slope of his strong shoulders gleaming in the sun. “I’m all right. You—must think me an everlasting fool, but I was suddenly afraid out there—not afraid of the sea but of something the sea had done. It’s so difficult to explain—”
“Don’t try now,” he said briefly, the old gentleness back in his voice. “All that matters is
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