th a whole world of love in his tone.

She sprang up and wreathed her arms round his neck.

By and by, they began to talk in low tones, to map out and piece
together as well as they could the future life, which was inevitably
severed from the past by a deep gulf. They spoke of the work which they
could still share, of the interests they should still have in common. It
was very sad work for Erica infinitely sadder for Raeburn; but they were
both of them brave and noble souls, and they loved each other, and so
could get above the sadness. One thing they both agreed upon. They would
never argue about their opinions. They would, as far as possible, avoid
any allusion to the grave differences that lay between them.

Late in the afternoon, a little group of fishermen and idlers stood
on the beach. They were looking out seaward with some "anxiety, for a
sudden wind had arisen, and there was what they called 'an ugly sea.'"

"I tell you it was madness to let 'em go alone on such a day," said the
old sailor with the telescope.

"And I tell you that the old gentleman pulls as good an oar as any of
us," retorted another man, in a blue jersey and a sou'wester.

"Old gentleman, indeed!" broke in the coast guardsman. "Better say
devil at once! Why, man alive! Your old gentleman is Luke Raeburn, the
atheist."

"God forbid!" exclaimed the first speaker, lowering his telescope for a
moment. "Why, he be mighty friendly to us fishermen."

"Where be they now, gaffer? D'ye see them?" asked a keen-looking lad of
seventeen.

"Ay, there they be! There they be! God have mercy on 'em! They'll be
swamped sure as fate!"

The coast guardsman, with provoked sang-froid and indifference, began to
sing:

"For though his body's under hatches, His soul is gone alo-o-ft."

And then breaking off into a sort of recitative.

"Which is exactly the opposite quarter to what Luke Raeburn's soul will
go, I guess."

"Blowed if I wouldn't pull an oar to save a mate, if I were so mighty
sure he was going to the devil!" observed a weather-beaten seaman, with
gold earrings and a good deal of tattooing on his brawny arms.

"Would you now!" said the coast guardsman, with a superior and sardonic
smile. "Well, in my 'umble opinion, drowning's too good for him."

With which humane utterance, the coast guardsman walked off, singing of
Tom who

"Never from his word departed,
Whose heart was kind and soft."

"Well, I, for one, will lend a hand