"It's a mere patchin' of a body. He's warm yet. Maybe," looking closely into the face, "he'd have seen my boy aboord, an' could say which way he tuk. A drop of raw liquor ull bring him round." Phil glanced contemptuously at the surgeon's fine linen, and the diamond _solitaire_ on the small, white hand. "It's not likely that chap ud know the deck-hands. It's the man Doctor Dennis was expectin'." "Ay?" vaguely. She kept her hand on the feebly beating heart, chafing it. He lay there, looking her straight in the eyes; in hers--dull with the love and waiting of a life--there was no instinct of recognition. The kind, simple, blue eyes, that had watched his baby limbs grow and strengthen in her arms! How gray the hair was! but its bit of curl was in it yet. The same dear old face that he used to hurry home at night to see! Nobody had loved him but this woman,--never; if he could but struggle up and get his head on her breast! How he used to lie there when he was a big boy, listening to the same old stories night after night,--the same old stories! Something homely and warm and true was waking in him to-night that had been dead for years and years; this was no matter of aesthetics or taste, it was real, _real_. He wondered if people felt in this way who had homes, or those simple folk who loved the Lord. Inch by inch, with hard, slow pulls, they were gaining shore. Mary Defourchet was there. If he came to her as the clam-digger's bastard son, owning the lie he had practised half his life,--what then? He had fought hard for his place in the world, for the ease and culture of his life,--most of all, for the society of thorough-bred and refined men, his own kindred. What would they say to Derrick Trull, and the mother he had kept smothered up so long? All this with his eyes fixed on hers. The cost was counted. It was to give up wife and place and fame,--all he had earned. It had not been cheaply earned. All Doctor Birkenshead's habits and intellect, the million nervous whims of a sensitive man, rebelled against the sacrifice. Nothing to battle them down but--what? "Be ye hurt, Mother Phebe? What d'yer hold yer breath for?" She evaded him with a sickly smile. "We're gamin', Bowlegs. It's but a few minutes till we make shore. He'll be there, if--if he be ever to come." "Yes, Gran," with a look of pity. The wind stood still; it held its breath, as though with her it waited. The man strained against the tide till the veins in his brawny neck stood out purple. On the bald shore, the dim figures gathered in a cluster, eagerly watching. Old Phebe leaned forward, shading her eyes with her hand, peering from misty headland to headland with bated breath. A faint cheer reached them from land. "Does thee know the voices, Bowlegs?"--in a dry whisper. "It be the wreckers." "Oh!--Derrick," after a pause, "would be too weak to cheer; he'd be worn with the swimmin'. Thee must listen sharp. Did they cry my name out? as if there was some 'ut for me?"