This concentrated, mystical attention oppressed her. It was like a soft,
impalpable weight laid upon her. She rowed faster.
But now it seemed to her as if she were being followed. Casa Felice had
already disappeared. The shore was hidden in the darkness. She could only
see vaguely the mountain-tops. She paused, then dipped the oars again,
but again--after two or three strokes--she had the sensation that she was
being followed. She recalled Paolo's action when they were returning to
Casa Felice in the evening, leaned over the boat's side and put her ear
close to the water.
When she did so she heard the plash of oars--rhythmical, steady, and
surely very near. For a moment she listened. Then a sort of panic seized
her. She remembered the incident of the evening, the hidden boat, Paolo's
assertion that it was waiting near the house, that it had not gone. He
had said, too, that the unseen rower had begun to row when he began to
sing, had stopped rowing when he stopped singing. A conviction came to
her that this same rower as now following her. But why? Who was it? She
knew nobody on the lake, except Robin. And he--no, it could not be Robin.
The ash of the oars became more distinct. Her unreasoning fear increased.
With the mystical attention of the great and hidden mind was now blent a
crude human attention. She began to feel really terrified, and, seizing
her oars, she pulled frantically towards the middle of the lake.
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