She laughed that to scorn, a little hysterically, and went blindly into his arms, a smirr of mist in her eyes. All night she had been under a strain, had carried the responsibility of facing peril for all of them. Now she cast that burden, without a moment’s hesitation, on broader shoulders. His lip trembled. “I was afraid,” he whispered, as his arms went round her. “Horribly afraid till Dusty told me he’d heard you singing.” “Oh, I’m _glad_ you’ve come! I’m _glad_!” she wailed softly. He held her close, as though he were afraid that even yet malign fate might try to snatch her from him. Beyond a shadow of a doubt he knew now that if they lived nothing could keep them apart. She had been right. The sin that had held him from her was a dead and shriveled thing. It was no more a part of him than are discarded horns part of a living stag. Tug murmured, with emotion, “Thank God! Thank God!” Into this stress of feeling Ruth interjected herself. She saw no reason for being out of the picture. “Did Jesus send you?” she asked, tugging at his shirt-sleeve. He did not quite understand. Ruth explained, with the impatience of superiority. “Why, don’chu know? ‘Hold the fort, f’r I am comin’, Jesus signals still.’ Betty said ’f he didn’t come he’d send some one.” “I’m sure God sent him,” Betty said, her voice unsteady. “Bress de Lawd,” Mandy chimed in. “Now you git us off’n this yere busted house, Mr. Man, fer I don’ like no rampagin’ roun’ thisaway on no ocean v’yages.” Betty explained that he could not get them off just yet. They would have to wait to be rescued. “Whaffor he come ’f he ain’ gwine rescue us?” Mandy sniffed. The girl smiled into the eyes of her lover. She knew why he had come, and in his presence by some magic the fear had dropped from her heart. The current dragging at their tottering place of refuge could not shake her sure confidence that all was well with them. Hollister looked the situation over with the trained eye of an engineer. He must get them to the rocks before what was left of the house collapsed. But how? He could not take them with him through the waves beating against the sandstone. It was not certain that he could make a safe landing himself. But if he could reach the flat ledge above, he might contrive some kind of bridge out of the dead and down trees lying there. It would be a hazardous affair, but he was in no position to be choice about ways and means. Briefly he explained to Betty his plan. She clung to him, tremulously, reluctant to let him go. “Must you?” she murmured, and shuddered at the black waters rushing past. “Must you go in again? Couldn’t we just wait here?” “’Fraid not, dear. You feel how the house is shaking. It can’t last long. We’ve got to reach the rocks.” “It’s been pretty awful, Tug. When the wall was swept out, I thought--” She shook that appalling memory out of her mind and smiled at him, shyly, adorably. “I’m not afraid as long as you’re here.”