Darkness enshrouded him but a few moments, when a dash of cool water brought him back into light. He felt himself lowered upon the sand and after a breath or two he twisted himself on his elbow and saw that Neil's white face was held on Winnsome's breast and that Marion was running up from the shore with more water. For a space she knelt beside her brother, and then she hurried to him. Joy shone in her face. She fell upon her knees and drew his head in the hollow of her arm, crooning mad senseless words to him, and bathing his face with water, her eyes shining down upon him gloriously. Nathaniel reached up and touched her face, and she bowed her head until her hair smothered him in sweet gloom, and kissed him. He drew her lips to his own, and then she lowered him gently and stood up in the starlight, looking first at Neil and next down at him; and then she turned quickly back to the sea. From down near the shore she called back some word, and with a shrill cry Winnsome followed her. Nathaniel struggled to his elbow, to his knees--staggered to his feet. He saw the boat drifting out into the night, and Winnsome standing alone at the water-edge, her sobbing cries of entreaty, of terror, following it unanswered. He tottered down toward her, gaining new strength at each step, but when he reached her the boat was no longer to be seen and Winnsome's face was whiter than the sands under her feet. "She is gone--gone--" she moaned, stretching out her arms to him. "She is going--back to Strang!" And then, from far out in the white glory of the night, there came back to him the voice of the girl he loved. "Good-by--Good-by--" CHAPTER XII MARION FREED FROM BONDAGE "Gone!" moaned Winnsome again. "She has gone--back--to--Strang!" Neil was crawling to them like a wounded animal across the sand. She started toward him but Nathaniel stopped her. "She is the king's--wife--" His throat was swollen so that he could hardly speak. "No. They are to be married to-night. Oh, I thought she was going to stay!" She tore herself away from him to go to Neil, who had fallen upon his face exhausted, a dozen yards away. In the wet sand, where the incoming waves lapped his hands and feet, Nathaniel sank down, his eyes staring out into the shimmering distance where Marion had gone. His brain was in a daze, and he wondered if he had been stricken by some strange madness--if this all was but some passing phantasm that would soon leave him again to his misery and his despair. But the dash of the cold water against him cleared away his doubt. Marion had come to him. She had saved him from death. And now she was gone. And she was not the king's wife!