readful mouth, with its thin, ashen lips, would speak to her, and she
could deny nothing. Trusting to her luck--something which had never
failed her--she had continued in her determination to keep everything
from Max. Now it would all come as a shock to him, and when he asked
her if it was true she could only bow her head.

She dared not look at Archie--she could not. All her injustice to him
and to Jane; her abandonment of him when a baby; her neglect of him
since, her selfish life of pleasure; her triumph over Max--all came
into review, one picture after another, like the unrolling of a chart.
Even while her hand was on Jane's shoulder, and while comforting words
fell from her lips, her mind and eyes were fixed on the face of the man
whom the doctor was slowly bringing back to life.

Not that her sympathy was withheld from Archie and Jane. It was her
terror that dominated her--a terror that froze her blood and clogged
her veins and dulled every sensibility and emotion. She was like one
lowered into a grave beside a corpse upon which every moment the earth
would fall, entombing the living with the dead.

The man groaned and turned his head, as if in pain. A convulsive
movement of the lips and face followed, and then the eyes partly opened.

Lucy clutched at the coil of rope, staggered to her feet, and braced
herself for the shock. He would rise now, and begin staring about, and
then he would recognize her. The captain knew what was coming; he was
even now planning in his mind the details of the horrible plot of which
Jane had told her!

Captain Holt stooped closer and peered under the half-closed lids.

"Brown eyes," she heard him mutter to himself, "just 's the Swede told
me." She knew their color; they had looked into her own too often.

Doctor John felt about with his hand and drew a small package of
letters from inside the man's shirt. They were tied with a string and
soaked with salt water. This he handed to the captain.

The captain pulled them apart and examined them carefully.

"It's him," he said with a start, "it's Bart! It's all plain now.
Here's my letter," and he held it up. "See the printing at the
top--'Life-Saving Service'? And here's some more--they're all stuck
together. Wait! here's one--fine writing." Then his voice dropped so
that only the doctor could hear: "Ain't that signed 'Lucy'?
Yes--'Lucy'--and it's an old one."

The doctor waved the letters away and again laid his hand on the
suf