"By heaven--no!" he broke in passionately. "I would sooner die with you than live without you. But nothing can get rid of the fact that it is owing to me that you are here at all. You, for whom I would have given five hundred lives--would have lost the salvation of a thousand souls to see in safety now. Oh, my darling--my heart's sweet love--will not your God again take me at my word and work a miracle to save only you!" he added with a despairing, bitter cry, as he sank upon his knees at her feet, still clasping her with both his arms. She bent her face down till it rested against his, and her soft, caressing hands were round his neck. "Hush--my own!" she said. "Do not talk in that desperate way. A very little while, and we shall be united to part no more. We--you especially--have been terribly tried; now we are about to pass through the waters of death, but our sweet Saviour is very merciful. He will not part us again." Her calm courage and the solemn conviction of her tender tones seemed to breathe a halo of peace amid that jarring scene of storm and chaos. Their faces were wet with the showers of salt spray, and the girl's soft hair, partially unfastened, was tossed rudely about by the cutting wind. The thunder of the surf upon the shore and the shrieking of the fierce gale drowned all other sound, yet in an interval in the turmoil, her voice could be heard fervently praying. She pleaded that if it was agreeable to the Divine Will they might be rescued from their imminent peril, but if not, and it was appointed to them now to pass through the awful waters of death, that grace might be given them both patiently to undergo whatever period of penance might be necessary to their purification, so that they might at last be united, never again to part, safe in the Heavenly Country. Then, with her head upon her lover's shoulder, his arms around her, and her hands in his, it seemed to Olive Ingelow that the world was very far away, and she could await with perfect resignation the short but terrible struggle which should set them both free. Rolling in, huge and awful in the dim gloaming, the mighty billows roared nearer and nearer, hurling great masses of milky foam at their very feet. They could hardly see each other's face in the weird, sepulchral light. "Roland, we are close to Smugglers' Ladder, are we not?" He started at the sound of her voice, in which there was a ring of hope. "Quite close. Why?" "Is there no chance of escape that way?" He shook his head sadly. "None whatever. I had thought of that, but it seemed better to--to face the worst here in the open than to be drowned like rats in a hole. Why, the tide runs up it like a mill-race."