"But it isn't safe; you know it isn't," exclaimed his daughter. "Look! Look at her now! Father! Look at her!" "Wait!" She felt her father's fingers crush her bare arm as he clutched her in his excitement. "She's turned over, swimming on her back. It's all right; I think I---- No, by God! No! Here! Hello! Hello, there, guard!" He pointed with one hand to where Lola floated, and waved the other frantically to a life guard who sat in a boat nearer to Lola than he was, but even at that a good fifty yards away. "Behind you! There! Behind you!" "He sees her, father. He is going to her," cried Alice, while the others on the raft screamed out directions and encouragement to the sun-burned young fellow who was making his heavy surf-boat leap through the water. "He will be in time; she is keeping herself afloat!" She was keeping herself afloat, but that was all. Suddenly a pain had shot through her heart, and she felt herself powerless to move her arms; she sank over, and when she rose to the surface just managed to keep herself above water by floating on her back, and now and then, by the greatest effort, taking a feeble stroke when the numbness that was so rapidly spreading over her body allowed her to do so. She would die unless she managed to keep up until help should come; she knew that! She was fast losing consciousness now; she would die unless she forced herself to live! Unless she drove back, bit by bit, the weakness that was overpowering her. The pain in her heart was not so bad now; she could move her arm a little more; she could move it more if she tried; she must try; she would--there--again--again--what did the pain matter; it was life--life---- "Are you all right now?" She was lying in the bottom of a little surf-boat; a young man was bending over her, speaking to her. She looked up into his face and smiled. How big he was, and how strong, and how naked. Arms, and legs, and breast, and shoulders, firm, solid, sun-burned flesh. He had one arm about her, holding her up. She nestled close up to him, her head dropping back on his shoulder, her eyes answering the challenge that suddenly flashed into his. CHAPTER XV ANOTHER CONQUEST "I beg your pardon, Mr. Bradley, but I am Dick Fenway." Mr. Bradley looked up from his paper and saw Dick standing on the veranda beside him. "Dick Fenway! My friend Fenway's boy." "Yes, sir." "I am glad to know you, very glad!" He shook hands warmly with the young man and turned to where his daughter was standing, looking at them with a smile of interest. "Alice, this is Dick Fenway." "It was good of you to come to us like this," she said pleasantly as she gave him her hand. "Your father has spoken of you so often that we feel quite as though we had always known you." "You are awfully good, I am sure," replied Dick. "I know that father would never forgive me if he heard that I had been at the same hotel with you, without making myself known."