"Isn't she with you?"
"See if she's in the river."
"If she is, the punt striking the bank must have knocked her
overboard."
They looked, but no sign could be seen of the dog. Mavis called her
name loudly, frantically, but no Jill appeared.
"What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?" she cried helplessly.
"Look!" cried Perigal suddenly. "Look, those weeds!"
Mavis looked in the direction indicated. About six feet from the
bank was a growth of menacing-looking weeds under the water, which
just now were violently agitated.
"I'll bet anything it's Jill. She's caught in the weeds," said
Perigal.
"Let me come. Let me come," cried Mavis.
"It's ten feet deep. You're surely not going in?"
"I can't let her drown."
"Let me--"
"But--"
"I'm going in. I can swim."
Perigal had thrown off his coat, kicked off his boots.
The next moment, he had dived in the direction in which he believed
Jill to be.
Mavis was all concern for her pet. Although she knew that, more
likely than not, she would never see her alive again, she scarcely
suffered pain at all. Although incapable of feeling, her mind noted
trivial things with photographic accuracy--a bit of straw on a bush,
a white cloud near the sun, the lonely appearance of an isolated
pollard willow.
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