by heavy stones. The floor inside
was strewn with tussac-grass to keep the feet dry from the damp earth.
There was also a fireplace for logs, with a flue and chimney to carry
off the smoke, and before it was ready for occupancy he started a fire,
thus driving out the damp and making it dry and inhabitable.

He toiled unceasingly and tirelessly, whistling cheerfully as he worked.
As Grace watched him, the thought was impressed upon her more strongly
than ever that this man was far happier here amid primeval conditions,
thrown upon his own resources, than he had been in a so-called civilized
state. Evidently he had no keen desire to be rescued. The thought filled
her again with dismay. Not that it would really make any material
difference. If succor were coming, they would be rescued whether her
mysterious companion wished it or not. But that any human being could be
reconciled to spending the remainder of his days on a barren islet in a
remote part of the ocean, without clothes, tools, books, or even the
bare necessaries of life, was intolerable. A man who could entertain
such an idea for a moment could have instincts little superior to a
savage.

Often she had watched her strange, moody companion as he worked and
wondered what his history was. He was no ordinary seaman--that was
evident from his speech and manner. He had certainly known better days.
He never spoke of himself, and when tactfully she broached the subject,
he abruptly changed the conversation. One day she said to him:

"You weren't always a stoker, were you--you weren't born to that kind of
life?"

He stopped in his work, and for a moment looked at her in silence, as if
seeking time to frame his answer. Then laconically he said:

"My past life is dead. I live only in the present. Just what I seem I
am."

Still unconvinced, she returned to the attack.

"Why did you desert from the steamer in New York?"

He clenched his fist as thus brutally she revived the memory of his past
suffering, and in a low tone, which came almost like a hiss from between
his set teeth, he said:

"Because I could not stand it any longer--I just couldn't. I was
desperate."

"Why did you take to such dreadful work?" she persisted. "Was there
nothing else more congenial, less brutalizing that you could do?"

He shook his head.

"No--nothing. There was nothing else." Bitterly he added: "The poor must
slave so that the rich may enjoy."

Puzzled, she asked:

"What do yo