Ah, well, if he took it like that, why should she go any further with him? “You’d better hurry on with the dog,” she said. “Tell father he must manage somehow to come.” “Are you out of your head!” He seemed to be carrying her forward without volition of hers. She offered no physical resistance but, “I’m not coming with you to the ship,” she said. “I’ve got to go back.” “Go where, for God’s sake?” “Back to the hut.” “Go—what for?” “Because Jack Galbraith is there.” For just an instant his fingers slackened hold. The shadow of a fear she had never seen in those clear eyes darkened the fine candor of his face, and then, with firmer grasp, he was once more hurrying her on. “I’m not going crazy. It’s sober truth. Louis, Louis, what are we to do?” “Prevent that boat from leaving us behind.” “Ah, you don’t care! It’s nothing to you!” The hand on her arm tightened in such a grip she could hardly keep from crying out with the pain of it, but faster than ever the two were flying along the stony beach. “Oh Louis, help me!” she said passionately, and holding back by main force she brought down the pace. “You wouldn’t want me to—oh, tell me what’s to be done!” “I don’t know.” Suddenly all that energy of his seemed spent. “Perhaps nothing can be done.” She had never before seen hopelessness in his face. It pierced through all her preoccupation and excitement. “Yes, yes, something can be done. You needn’t take it as you’re doing. Oh, Louis, don’t you see, _you_ might go back.” “_I?_” He looked at her with eyes that made her draw a breath of pain. “It is true,” he said; “I might go back.” “Will you?” she faltered. “To Galbraith, you say! You _want_ me to go back?” “Do you ‘want’ to leave him here friendless, sick. Oh, it was well I came! I must have had an inkling; yes, yes, a presentiment.” “_That’s_ why you came! Why you waited here!” The sailors might abandon their dangerous task and leave those two there on the beach, for all it seemed to matter to Louis Cheviot, since he had halted on the words: “Galbraith behind these days, too!” The shouting of the sailors made him turn his eyes. The boat out there, baffled again, was driven back in a third effort to make the final run. Cheviot with his free hand shaped a trumpet, and through it shouted across the surf, “Try up here!” The men in the boat called out something that was drowned in the clamor of the waves, and Cheviot was running Hildegarde faster than ever down that last stretch of the stony beach. Would he never stop and let her get back her voice? Oh, this carrying a hot ball of lead in your breast, and having to lift it every time you strained for breath.