rising higher and higher in little circles, a lark was singing.
Jeanne half closed her eyes and stood still, engrossed by the
unexpected beauty of her surroundings. Then suddenly a voice came
travelling to her from across the marshes.

She turned round unwillingly, and with a vague feeling of irritation
against this interruption, which seemed to her so inopportune, and
in turning round she realized at once that her period of absorption
must have lasted a good deal longer than she had had any idea of.
She had walked straight across the marshes towards the little
hillock on which she stood, but the way by which she had come was no
longer visible. The swelling tide had circled round through some
unseen channel, and was creeping now into the land by many creeks
and narrow ways. She herself was upon an island, cut off from the
dry land by a smoothly flowing tidal way more than twenty yards
across. Along it a man in a flat-bottomed boat was punting his way
towards her. She stood and waited for him, admiring his height, and
the long powerful strokes with which he propelled his clumsy craft.
He was very tall, and against the flat background his height seemed
almost abnormal. As soon as he had attracted her attention he ceased
to shout, and devoted all his attention to reaching her quickly.
Nevertheless, the salt water was within a few feet of her when he
drove his pole into the bottom, and brought the punt to a momentary
standstill. She looked down at him, smiling.

"Shall I get in?" she asked.

"Unless you are thinking of swimming back," he answered drily, "it
would be as well."