To talk, save in monosyllables, was impossible, and then one had to shout. Our ears were stopped up with water; the clash of the wind against the waves was deafening. My one fear for her was that the cramp would spread. If that happened, we would go down together. I felt her cold lips pressed against my shoulder. As I looked round, she let go of me. “I’m done,” she said. She went under. I slipped my arm about her and turned over on my back, so that my body floated under her, and she lay across my breast. “You shan’t go,” I panted furiously. “Let me,” she pleaded. But I held her. “You shan’t go,” I said. My anger roused her. I turned over again, swimming the breast-stroke. She placed her arm round my neck. Her long hair washed about me. Sometimes her eyes were closed and I thought she had fainted. Her lips had ceased to chatter. Her face lay against my shoulder, pinched and quiet as though she were dead. My own motions were becoming mechanical. It was sheer lust of life that kept me going. I had lost sensation in my feet and hands. The shore had dwindled behind us; it seemed very small and blurred, though it was probably only half-a-mile distant. The water was less turbulent now; it rose and fell, rose and fell, with a rocking restfulness. I felt that I would soon be sleeping soundly. But in the midst of drowsing, my mind would spring up alert and I would drag her arm closer about my neck. Above the clamor of the waves I heard a shout. At first I thought that I had given it myself. I heard it again; it was unmistakable. Looking up out of the trough of a wave, I saw a patched sail hanging over us. My sight was misty; the sail was indistinct and yet near me. As I rose on the crest, a hand grabbed me and I felt myself lifted out on to a pile of nets. CHAPTER IV--THE TRUTH ABOUT HER Thar, lad, lie still. Yow’ll be ’ome direc’ly.” The gray-bearded man at the tiller smiled to me in a friendly manner. He didn’t seem at all excited, but took all that had happened stoically, as part of the day’s work. Seeing me gaze round questioningly, he added, “The lassie’s well enough, Mr. Cardover. She’ll come round. A mouthful o’ salt water won’t ’urt ’er.” I wondered vaguely how he knew my name. Then, as my brain cleared, I remembered him as one of the fishermen who called in at my grandmother’s shop for an occasional chat, seated on a barrel. I raised myself on my elbow. We were rounding the pier-head, running into the harbor. I was in a little shrimping-boat. The nets hung out over the stern. The old man at the tiller was in oilskins and a younger man was shortening sail.