Then came the horrible alarm of fire, and she had rushed from her stateroom in the white dressing gown, warm and dainty, in which she had thrown herself down to rest on her couch. Her father had met her and caught her in his arms. She saw Frank Laurier lingering near, but she quickly turned her head away, saying to herself that she would not speak to him if she were dying. Such a little time afterward she had been caught up in his arms and borne down the ladder to the boat, swooning as soon as she was placed in it, and now--now--the incredible horror of the thought made her dizzy--she was lost to all the world but this man, alone with him on the wide, wide sea, under his protection, at his mercy. How had it all come about? Feminine curiosity made her put aside her vow of silence, and she looked at him with wide, solemn eyes, murmuring: “Where is the boat?” “You fell out of it and sank, and those wretches left you to your fate. I saw them and swam near, catching you as you came to the surface.” “Then--I--owe--you--my--life!” “Yes,” he answered, and she wondered at the sweet, significant smile that played around his lips. He dared not tell his companion, either, of how the fiends in the boat had cast her out into the sea to perish. The shock would be too great to her nerves, already shattered by grief at her father’s loss. He said to himself that if they escaped the perils of the sea the time might come when he could safely tell her these things and ask her to give him her life that he had saved to gladden his home forever. Higher and higher climbed the sun in the heavens, and the sea glittered with a brilliancy that pained their eyes while the whitecapped waves rocked them on the breast of old ocean, the only living objects in the scene, while far in the distance the smoldering hulk of the _Atlanta_ was slowly sinking from sight as it burned to the water’s edge. They kept close together, their eyes turned on the far distance, watching for the gleam of a sail that might presage rescue, but at last hope began to die in their hearts, they were so weary with the buffeting of the cruel waves and the hot glare of the sun that they were almost ready to close their eyes on the waste of sunlit water and sink down, down, down, through the cool, green darkness to eternal rest. CHAPTER XXX. A HEART OF SYMPATHY. It was a stroke of the rarest good fortune that Laurier and Jessie should be saved by a homeward-bound steamer--the _Scythia_, going straight to New York. What a sensation they created when the passengers discovered them floating in the water on the poor raft formed of the plank and the spar. A boat was quickly lowered, and they were drawn into it with all speed, and, oh, what pity and kindness was showered on them after their long exposure and peril! The men took charge of Laurier, and the women of Jessie, every one eager to contribute dry clothing and administer all needed comforts.