ng eyes challenged him. He would have been less than a man if
he had not responded to the appeal of her youth and beauty. "Dicky," she
said, "when we are married I am going to give you the time of your young
life. All work and no play will make you a dull boy, Dicky."

In the night the clouds came up over the moon, and when the late and lazy
party appeared on deck for luncheon, Marie-Louise complained. "I hate it
this way. There's going to be a storm."

There was a storm before night. It blew up tearingly from the south and
there was menace in it and madness.

Winifred and Eve were good sailors. But Marie-Louise went to pieces. She
was frantic with fear, and as the night wore on, Richard found himself
much concerned for her.

She insisted on staying on deck. "I feel like a rat in a trap when I am
inside. I want to face it."

The wind was roaring about them. The sea was black and the sky was black,
a thick velvety black that turned to copper when the lightning came.

"Aren't you afraid?" Marie-Louise demanded; "aren't you?"

"No."

"Why shouldn't you be? Why shouldn't anybody be?"

"My nerves are strong, Marie-Louise."

"It isn't nerves. It's faith. You believe that the boat won't go down,
and you believe that if it did go down your soul wouldn't die."

Her white face was close to him. "I wish I could believe like that," she
said in a high, sharp voice. Then she screamed as the little ship seemed
caught up into the air and flung down again.

"Hush," Richard told her; "hush, Marie-Louise."

She was shaking and shivering. "I hate it," she sobbed.

Pip, like a yellow specter in oilskins, came up to them. "Eve wants you,
Brooks," he shouted above the clamor of wind and wave.

"Shall we go in, Marie-Louise?"

"No, no." She cowered against his arm.

Over her head Richard said to Pip, "I shall come as soon as I can."

So Pip went down, and the two were left alone in the tumult and blackness
of the night.

As Marie-Louise lay for a moment quiet against his arm, Richard bent
down to her. "Are you still afraid?"

"Yes, oh, yes. I keep thinking--if I should die. And I am afraid to die."

"You are not going to die. And if you were there would be nothing to
fear. Death is just--falling asleep. Rarely any terror. We doctors know,
who see people die. I know it, and your father knows it."

By the light of a blinding flash he saw her white face with its wet red
hair.

"Dad doesn't know it as you know," she sai