e was displeased with her for leaving the
cabin, and she reiterated her earnest request that he would suffer her
to come up just for a little to breathe the fresh air.

"It is so horrible below," she told him. "It frightens me."

Pierre was frowning heavily.

"Do you think you would not be my first care?" he demanded, bracing
himself as the vessel plunged to support her with greater security.

She did not answer. There was a touch of ferocity in the question that
silenced her. The pitching of the yacht threw her against him the next
moment, and her feet slipped from beneath her.

Unconsciously almost she turned and clung to the arms that held her up.
They tightened about her to a grip that made her gasp for breath. He
lifted her back to the foothold she had lost. His face was more grimly
set than she had ever seen it.

She wondered if he was secretly afraid. For they seemed to be sinking
down, down, down into the depths of destruction, and only his close
holding kept her where she was.

She thought that they were going straight to the bottom, and
involuntarily her clinging hands held faster. Involuntarily, too, she
raised her eyes to his, seeking, as the human soul is bound to seek, for
human comradeship in face of mortal danger.

But the next instant she knew that no thought of danger was in his mind,
or if it existed it was obscured by something infinitely greater.

His eyes saw her and her only. The fierce flame of his passion blazed
down upon her, searing its terrible way to her soul, dazzling her,
hypnotising her, till she could see nought else, could feel nought but
the burning intensity of the fire that had kindled so suddenly about
her.

A dart of wild dismay went through her as keen as physical pain, but in
a moment it was gone. For though he held her caught against his breast
and covered her face with kisses that seemed to scorch her, it was not
fear that she felt so much as a gasping wonder that she was unafraid.

IX

When Pierre let her go, she fell, half-fainting, against the rail, and
must have sunk at his feet had he not sharply stooped and lifted her.
Profiting by a brief lull in the tempest, he bore her down the steps and
into the dark saloon. She lay quite passive in his arms, dazed,
exhausted, but still curiously devoid of fear.

He laid her upon a cushioned locker by the wall, and relighted the lamp.
Then, in utter silence, he carried her to her cabin beyond and left her
there