h of the wind were shut out. The only
light in the House of Refuge now came from the two small windows, one
above the form of the suffering man and the other behind the dead body
of Archie. Jane's head was close to the boy's chest, her sobs coming
from between her hands, held before her face. The shock of Archie's
death had robbed her of all her strength. Lucy knelt beside her, her
shoulder resting against a pile of cordage. Every now and then she
would steal a furtive glance around the room--at the boat, at the
rafters overhead, at the stove with its pile of kindling--and a slight
shudder would pass through her. She had forgotten nothing of the past,
nor of the room in which she crouched. Every scar and stain stood out
as clear and naked as those on some long-buried wreck dug from shifting
sands by a change of tide.

A few feet away the doctor was stripping the wet clothes from the
rescued man and piling the dry coats over him to warm him back to life.
His emergency bag, handed in by Polhemus through the crack of the
closed doors, had been opened, a bottle selected, and some spoonfuls of
brandy forced down the sufferer's throat. He saw that the sea-water had
not harmed him; it was the cordwood and wreckage that had crushed the
breath out of him. In confirmation he pointed to a thin streak of blood
oozing from one ear. The captain nodded, and continued chafing the
man's hands--working with the skill of a surfman over the water-soaked
body. Once he remarked in a half-whisper--so low that Jane could not
hear him:

"I ain't sure yet, doctor. I thought it was Bart when I grabbed him
fust; but he looks kind o' different from what I expected to see him.
If it's him he'll know me when he comes to. I ain't changed so much
maybe. I'll rub his feet now," and he kept on with his work of
resuscitation.

Lucy's straining ears had caught the captain's words of doubt, but they
gave her no hope. She had recognized at the first glance the man of all
others in the world she feared most. His small ears, the way the hair
grew on the temples, the bend of the neck and slope from the chin to
the throat. No--she had no misgivings. These features had been part of
her life--had been constantly before her since the hour Jane had told
her of Bart's expected return. Her time had come; nothing could save
her. He would regain consciousness, just as the captain had said, and
would open those awful hollow eyes and would look at her, and then that
d