Papa lay down upon the stern seat of his boat and stretched himself over the gap between the boats, to catch hold beneath the man’s arms. The woman’s head lolled to the side, though still her face remained obscured by her hair. Papa nodded, and Mr. Hunnowell let go of the drowned; he turned and reached up to grab my outstretched hand and pulled himself up onto the dock.

“Thank you,” he said to me, catching his breath. I nodded, suddenly shy. He rolled onto his stomach, taking care to hook his feet into the iron rings behind us at the other edge of the dock, reached back down with one hand and caught the woman’s wrists firmly in his grip, so Papa did not bear all.

“Get some help, Maisie,” Papa said. “I do not see how we can bring them onto the dock.”

I stood and ran up the gangway, and I saw to my relief when I reached the top that Mr. Coates, the Grange House boatman, was coming through the boathouse, alerted by the boys, his clamming boots still muddy from where they must have found him. He passed me wordlessly down the gangway to Papa and Mr. Hunnowell. I turned and crept back again to watch.

Mr. Hunnowell still held fast to those poor cold wrists, though he had begun to shiver.

“We cannot pull them up,” Papa cried out.

Without a word to either man, Mr. Coates climbed down the swimming ladder into the water. Keeping hold of the edge of the ladder with his left hand, he reached his right down the length of the bodies below the surface of the water, his hand discovering what his eyes could not.

“Grab hold beneath her arms, Mr. Hunnowell,” Mr. Coates directed from the rungs of the ladder, and Mr. Hunnowell did so. The woman’s grip was now entirely loosened upon the man, so Mr. Coates could catch hold of the man’s torso, while Papa managed to keep tight grip upon his legs, and slowly the two men dragged and pushed the drowned man up the ladder until he was laid upon the dock.

I cried out at whom I saw.

Without a word, Mr. Coates and Papa helped Mr. Hunnowell draw the woman straight up from the water. I looked away, dreading who it might be. I heard the rush of water streaming from her as they set her down beside her lover. For a time, that was the only sound. I turned, and there lay Halcy Ames at my feet, her gray cloak spread wide around her poor wet body.

Mr. Coates closed Henry’s eyes with two fingers, then softly combed the young man’s hair from off his face, revealing an ugly wound long since stopped bleeding.