waves filled the bitter silence that followed, but
the battering of the rain upon the cottage roof was decreasing. The
storm was no longer overhead.

Adam leaned on the back of a chair with his head in his hands. All the
wiry activity seemed to have gone out of him. He looked old and broken.

The girl stood motionless behind him. A strange impassivity had
succeeded her last fruitless appeal, as though through excess of
suffering her faculties were numbed, animation itself were suspended.
She leaned against the wall, staring with wide, tragic eyes at the flame
of the lamp that stood in the window. Her arms hung stiffly at her
sides, and the hands were clenched. She seemed to be gazing upon
unutterable things.

There was nothing to be done--nothing to be done! Till the waves had
spent their fury, till that raging sea went down, they were as helpless
as babes to stay the hand of Fate. No boat could live in that fearful
turmoil of water. Adam had said it, and she knew that what he said was
true, knew by the utter dejection of his attitude, the completeness of
his despair. She had never seen Adam in despair before; probably no one
had ever seen him as he was now. He was a man to strain every nerve
while the faintest ray of hope remained. He had faced many a furious
storm, saved many a life that had been given up for lost by other men.
But now he could do nothing, and he crouched there--an old and broken
man--for the first time realising his helplessness.

A long time passed. The only sound within the cottage was the ticking of
a grandfather-clock in a corner, while without the great sound of the
breaking seas filled all the world. The storm above had passed. Now the
thunder-blast no longer shook the cottage. A faint greyness had begun to
show beyond the lamp in the window. The dawn was drawing near.

As one awaking from a trance of terrible visions, the girl drew a deep
breath and spoke:

"Adam!"

He did not stir. He had not stirred for the greater part of an hour.

She made a curiously jerky movement, as if she wrenched herself free
from some constricting hold. She went to the bowed, despairing figure.

"Adam, the day is breaking. The tide must be on the turn. Shan't we go?"

He stood up with the gesture of an old man. "What's the good?" he said.
"Do you think I want to see my boy's dead body left behind by the sea?"

She shivered at the question. "But we can't stay here," she urged. "Aunt
Liza, you know--she'l