"Take care, Bubbles! It's very slippery just here." "I'm all right," she called back pettishly.

"Mind your own business, Bill.

I wish you wouldn't keep looking round!" Donnington saw Varick put out his right hand and grasp the girl's arm firmly; but even so it struck him that they were both walking too near the edge on the side to the water.

Still, he didn't feel he could say any more, and so he turned away, and again began trudging along by the silent Tapster's side.
For a while nothing happened, and then all at once there occurred something which Donnington will never recall--and that however long he may live--without a sensation of unreasoning, retrospective horror welling up within him.
And yet it was only the sound--the almost stuffless sound--of a splash! It was as if a lump of earth, becoming detached from the wet bank, had rolled over into the deep water.
At the same moment, or a fraction of a moment later, Varick laughed aloud; it was a discordant laugh, evidently at something Bubbles had just said, for Donnington heard the words, "Really, Bubbles!" uttered in a loud, remonstrating, and yet jovial voice.
And then, all at once, some instinct caused the young man to wheel sharply round, to see, a long way back from the others, Varick standing solitary on the brick path.
His companion had vanished.

It was as if the earth had swallowed her up.
"Where's Bubbles ?" shouted Donnington.
But Varick, still standing in the middle of the path, did not look as if he heard Donnington's question.