The wind plucked the feet from under them, and they fell to the decking of the pier, gripping with their fingers in the gaps between the planks. A storm of sand and leaves and twigs beat against their heads. The crazy tressle-work of the pier buckled and swung beneath their bodies. “We must get shorewards,” Onslow yelled in his companion’s ear; “this jam-crack thing will go by the board directly.” “Right, oh,” came back the response cheerily enough, and together they began to warp themselves towards the beach and the wind, plank at a time. The girl was strong, and accustomed to using her muscles; but skirts are a poor rig to play caterpillar in, and her progress was slow even with Onslow’s help. When they had gained a score of yards, she bade him leave her to make the best of his own way. “I shall get along all right,” she cried. “Go and tell them I’m coming.” “Naturally I should,” he shouted back with a laugh. “Here, let me link my arm inside yours. That’s right. Now we’ll ferry along at twice the pace.” But they did not get much further. A minute afterwards, to the kick of a harder squall, the gray old pier tottered and clattered and crunched, and the wind was filled with flying boards, and Onslow found himself with one arm clutching the weed-clad stump of a pile, and the other wrapped round Elsie Kildare. “Hurt?” he shouted anxiously. “Not a bit. Sound as a bell. You?” “All right.” “But where’s the water? There should be six feet here, and I can feel none.” “Blown away to sea. We may thank God the wind is not on-shore, or we’d have been drowned, as hundreds of other poor wretches are this moment. Ah! That’s a shave.” A lightning flash showed them a huge tree plucked from its roots, and blowing past them, squirming and crashing about like a live mad thing. Then a heavy squared roof-beam hit their jagged pile, and missed Onslow’s arm by a nail’s breadth. “The hotel’s going down,” he shouted. “The air will be full of this stuff in a minute, and if we try to move we shall be brained before we’ve got a yard. Crouch down, dear, at the bottom of the post.” “You too?” “No, there isn’t room.” “Then I shall stand.” She dragged at his sleeve and pulled him to her side. “Stay by me here, Pat. You might get swept away, and I couldn’t bear that.” “Of course, I’ll stay by you, dear. I’ll never go till you turn me away.” He took new grip with his arms, pinning her between his breast and the weed-ragged leg of the pile. “Elsie, I want to tell you something. You know I’ve always liked you as a friend; but now it has come to more than that. Much more. Love, darling. Once my mind was full of another woman, and I thought I could never care for any one else as I cared for her. But that was years since—thousands of years it seems now—and, Elsie, I’ve—I’ve—forgotten her. She is only a name to me; and your sister. Dear, if we get away from this, do you think you could like me, too, a little more than an ordinary friend?”