for Felicia. She must not think of going back to
the empty farm-house. He arranged a most comfortable little supper
beside the fire, and even made her smile, with his eager talk, all
ringing with hope and encouragement. And finally he put her in charge of
his sympathetic little housekeeper, who tucked her up in a great, dark,
soft bed.

Left alone in the library, the Maestro paced unsteadily up and down. "It
is the sea that takes them!" he whispered. "It took my son; now it has
taken one whom I loved as my son."

He sank down upon the piano-stool and gazed at the sheet of music on the
music-rack. It was Kirk's last exercise, written out carefully in the
embossed type that the Maestro had been at such pains to learn and
teach. Something like a sob shook the old musician. He raised clenched,
trembling fists above his head, and brought them down, a shattering
blow, upon the keyboard. Then he sat still, his face buried in his arms
on the shaken piano. Felicia, lying stiff and wide-eyed in the great
bed above, heard the crash of the hideous discord, and shuddered. She
had been trying to remember the stately, comforting words of the prayer
for those in peril on the sea, but now, frightened, she buried her face
in the pillow.

"Oh, dear God," she faltered. "You--You must bring him back--You
_must_!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE _CELESTINE_ PLAYS HER PART

"He's a deader," said one of the men, pulling off his watch-cap.

"No, he ain't," said another. "He's warm."

"But look at his eyes," said the first. "They ain't right."

"Where's the old man?" inquired one.

"Skipper's taking a watch below, arter the fog; don't yer go knockin'
him up now, Joe."

"Wait till the mate comes. Thunder, why don't yer wrop somep'n round the
kid, you loon?"

The big schooner was getting under way again. The mate's voice spoke
sharply to the helmsman.

"Helm up--steady. Nothing off--stead-y."

Then he left the quarter-deck and strode rapidly down to the little
group amidships. He was a tall man, with a brown, angular face, and
deep-set, rather melancholy, blue eyes. His black hair was just
beginning to gray above his temples, and several lines, caused more by
thought than age, scored his lean face.

"What have we picked up, here, anyway?" he demanded. "Stand off, and
let me look."

There was not much to see--a child in a green jersey, with blown, damp
hair and a white face.

"You tink he's dead?" A big Swede asked the question.