we!"

His eyes brightened like a flash; his breath came quickly; he tried to
speak, but could not for the joy of hope.

"The hope that she may have been saved and may yet be given back to you
kept me from ending the life that did not belong to me, but to her. Hugh
Ridgeway, I have spent a thousand years on these rocks, trying to find
courage to live. But for me she would be standing here with you. You
would have saved her had I not been in the way last night," she
whispered. He could see that she suffered, but he was again blind to
everything but his own great despair.

"Yes," he cried savagely, "but for you I would have saved her. Oh, I
could curse you--curse you!" She shrank back with a low moan, covering
her eyes with her hands.

"Don't say that!" she murmured piteously. "I would to God I could have
gone down with the ship." His eyes softened and a wave of remorse
swept over him.

"Forgive me," he groaned, "I am mad or I could not have said that to
you. I did not mean it." He placed his hand on hers, clasping the
fingers firmly. "Forget that I spoke so cruelly. I devoutly thank God
that your life was spared. We both loved the one who was left behind."

She glanced down at his face doubtingly, unbelievingly, at first. Then a
gleam of joy flooded her tired eyes, illumined her face. Sinking down
beside him, she placed her head upon his shoulder and wept softly. He
did not move from his position on the rock below. His heart was full of
tenderness for the living and grief for the dead. His eyes stared out
over the sea wistfully.

"I cannot look at that water!" he suddenly shrieked, drawing back in
abject terror. "It is horrible! Horrible!"

He left her side and dashed madly away, strength having come with sudden
abhorrence. She looked after him in alarm, her eyes wide with the fear
that he was bereft of reason. Down the rocks and up the beach he fled,
disappearing among the strangely shaped trees and underbrush that marked
the outskirts of the jungle. Again she leaned back against the rock and
looked at the unfriendly billows beyond, a feeling that she sat deserted
forever on that barren shore plunging her soul into the very lowest pits
of wretchedness.

Hours afterward he crept painfully from the cool, lonely jungle into
the bright glare of the beach,--calmer, more rational, cursing no more.
A shudder swept over him, a chill penetrated to the marrow of his bones
as he looked again upon the sea. His eyes sough