...The waters had sucked her under twice already, when her helpless hands hit against some floating substance on the waves. She could not have grasped it by herself, for her strength was gone; but a hand gripped her in the darkness, and dragged her, almost insensible, to safety. For a long while she lay inert across the knees of her rescuer. Consciousness was at its very boundary. She knew that in some dim distance strong hands were chafing a wet and frozen body...but whose hands?...whose body?...Presently it was lifted to the shelter of strong arms; and now she was conscious of her own heart-beats, but it was like a heart beating in air, not in a body. Then warmth and breath began to fall like garments about this bodiless heart, and they were indeed not her own warmth and breath, but these things given to her by another--the warmth was that of his own body where he had laid her cold hands and breast to take what heat there was in him, and the breath was of his own lungs, putting life into hers through their two mouths....She opened her eyes. It was dark. The darkness she had come out of was bright beside this pitchy night, and her struggle back to life less painful than the fierce labor of the wind and waves. Their frail precarious craft was in ceaseless peril. His left arm held her like a vice, but for greater safety he had bound a rope round their two bodies and the small mast of their craft. With his right arm he clasped the mast low down, and his right hand came round to grip her shaking knees. In this close hold she lay a long while without speaking. Then she said faintly: "Is it my boy?" "Yes, child. Didn't you know?" "I wanted to hear you say it. How long have you been in danger?" "I don't know. Some hours. I thought you would never come to yourself." "I tried to come to you. I can't swim." "The sea brought you to me. You were nearly drowned. You slipped me once. If you had again--!" "What would you have done?" "Jumped in. I couldn't have stayed on here without you." "Ah, but you mustn't ever do that--promise, promise! For then you'd lose me for ever. Promise." "I promise. But there's no for ever of that sort. There's no losing each other, whatever happens. You know that, don't you?" "Yes, I do know. When people love, they find each other for ever. But I don't want you to die, and I don't want to die--yet. But if it is to-night it will be together. Will it be to-night, do you think?" "I don't know, dear. The storm's breaking up over there, but that's not the only danger." "But nothing matters, nothing matters at all while I'm with you." She lay heavily against him; her eyes closed, and she shook violently.