hers. "It would have
been so much better than to live without her," he cried.

"Why did you not let me go when you found who I was?" she cried almost
fiercely. "I wanted to drown, I was hungry to go to the bottom, to be
washed away to the end of the ocean, anywhere but here with you when you
thought you were saving her. You had forgotten that I existed until that
awful moment in the breakers. I heard her cry out to you as we went
overboard. All through the night I heard that cry of 'Hugh! Hugh!' It
was worse than the worst of deaths!"

At the mention of Grace's piteous cry, even though heard in
imagination, Hugh sank limply to the rock, his mouth falling open and
his eyes bulging forth in agony. Every drop of blood in his veins seemed
frozen with the realization that he had deserted her in that hour when
she had most needed him, that he had left her to go down to death
without being by her side, that she had cried out to him for help,--had
reached out to him in agony. Crazed by a sudden impulse, he sprang to
his feet and glared out over the tumbling waves,--ever moving mountains
that reached as far as the eye could see. She arose also, trembling
and alarmed.

"Where is she? Where is she?" he cried fiercely. "My God! Look at that
water! Grace, Grace! My darling, how could I have left you alone to die
in that hell of water! Let me come to you now, dearest. I will save you.
I will come! Hugh is coming, dearest! Look! She must be out there
somewhere. I can reach her if I try. I must go!"

Insane with despair, he leaped to his feet and would have dashed down
the steep into the death-dealing breakers had not his companion, with a
sharp cry, clutched his arm. He turned fiercely, ready to strike her in
his frenzy. His glaring eyes met hers, sweet, wide, and imploring, and
their influence told at once upon him. A rush of quiet almost benumbed
him, so immediate was the reaction from violence to submission.

"You must not do that!" she cried in horror.

"Let me save her, for God's sake. I cannot leave her to the sea."

"Be calm!" she wailed. "Hours ago I would have leaped into the sea
myself, but the thought came to me that she may not be lost after all.
There is something for you to live for."

"There is nothing. She is lost," he cried.

"As I stood here, I wondered if she might not have been saved as
miraculously as we. Wonder grew into hope and hope took the shape of
possibility. Hugh, she may be alive and as safe as