," was the sullen answer.

It was a question whether one man had the strength to shove the little
boat through the icy, roaring waters and keep her off the shore. He did
it successfully for a hundred yards and the wind and sea became so
fierce he was driven in and could make no headway. He called Bivens,
gave him an oar and made him walk in the edge of the water and hold the
boat off while he placed his oar on the mud bottom and pushed with
might and main to drive her ahead.

Again and again he was on the point of giving up the struggle. It
seemed utterly hopeless.

It took two hours of desperate battling to make half a mile through the
white, blinding, freezing, roaring waters.

The yacht now lay but three hundred feet away from the edge of the
marsh. Stuart could see her snow-white side glistening in the
phosphorescent waves as they swept by her. The lights were gleaming
from her windows and he could see Nan's figure pass in the cabin.

As he stood resting a moment before he made the most difficult effort
of all to row the last hundred yards dead to the windward, he caught
the faint notes of the piano. She was playing, utterly unconscious of
the tragic situation in which the two men stood but a hundred yards
away. The little schooner was still aground resting easily on her flat
bottom in the mud, where the tide had left her as it ebbed. Unless she
went on deck, it was impossible for Nan to realize the pressure of the
wind.

She was playing one of the dreamy waltzes to which she had danced amid
the splendours of her great ball.

The music came over the icy waters accompanied by the moan and shriek
of the wind through the rigging with unearthly weird effect.

"Say, why do we stop so much?" Bivens growled. "I'm freezing to death.
Let's get to that yacht!"

"We'll do our best," Stuart answered gravely, "and if you know how to
pray now's your time."

"Oh, Tommyrot!" Bivens said, contemptuously, "I can throw a stone to
her from here."

"Get in!" Stuart commanded, "And lie down again flat on your back."

Bivens obeyed and the desperate fight began.

He made the first few strokes with his oars successfully and cleared
the shore, only to be driven back against it with a crash. A wave swept
over the little craft dashing its freezing waters into their faces.

Stuart drew his hand across his forehead and found to his horror the
water was freezing before he could wipe it off.

He grasped Bivens's hands and found