d have remembered
your face, and now I do. I am very, very grateful to you for saving my
life, and I shall never forget it. I shall do everything in my power to
repay you for your courage and kindness, you may be sure; but why did
you not send out word that I was here? You knew that I could not do it
myself, lying here ill with fever. Perhaps they have grown tired of
waiting for me by now, in New York. Perhaps they think I am dead.
Perhaps they have forgotten me--and that would be worse than death!"

The skipper felt like a fool, then like a whipped dog. It was this last
sensation that sent a wave of choking anger through him. He was not
accustomed to it. Had any other woman taken him to task so he would have
laughed and forgotten the incident in a minute. Had any man shown such
ingratitude he would have smashed his head; but now his dark face
flushed and he muttered a few words thickly which passed unheard and
unheeded even by himself.

"I am writing now," continued Flora, "and must ask you to send it out to
some place from which it can reach civilization, and be mailed to New
York. It is very important--almost a matter of life and death to me--for
it may yet be in time to save my career, even my engagement in New
York."

The skipper maintained his silence, crushing his cap in his big hands
and glowering at the rag-mat under his feet. Two kinds of love, several
kinds of devils, pride, anger and despair were battling in his heart.

"Ye'll take out the letter, skipper, sure ye will," said Mary, smiling
at him across the bed. Her fair face was pink and her eyes perturbed.
The man did not notice the pink of her cheeks or the anxiety in her
eyes.

"Why, of course you will take it--or send it," said Miss Lockhart. "It
is a very small thing to do for a person for whom you have already done
so much. You are the kindest people in the world--you three. You have
saved my life twice, among you. I shall never, never forget your
kindness, and as soon as I reach New York I shall repay you all. I shall
soon be rich."

Black Dennis Nolan looked at her, straight into her sea-eyes, and felt
the bitter-sweet spell of them again to the very depths of his being.
Her glance was the first to waver. A veil of color slipped up softly
across her pale cheeks. Young as she was, she had seen other men gaze at
her with that same light in their eyes. They had all been young men, she
reflected. Others, in Paris and London, had looked with less