John Turner was looking along the beach to the south, and one after another the watchers by the fire turned their anxious eyes in the same direction. The sea, whipped white, was bare of any wreck. “The Last Hope” of Farlingford was gone. She had broken up or rolled into deep water. A number of men were coming up the shingle in silence. Sea Andrew, dragging his feet wearily, approached in advance of them. “Boat's thrown up on the beach,” he said to Captain Clubbe. “Stove in by a sea. We've found them.” He stood back and the others, coming slowly into the light, deposited their burdens side by side near the fire. The Marquis, who had understood nothing, took a torch from the hand of a bystander and held it down toward the face of the man they had brought last. It was Loo Barebone, and the clean-cut, royal features seemed to wear a reflective smile. Miriam had come forward toward the fire, and by chance or by some vague instinct the bearers had laid their burden at her feet. After all, as John Turner had said, Loo Barebone had come back to her. She had denied him twice, and the third time he would take no denial. The taciturn sailors laid him there and stepped back--as if he was hers and this was the inevitable end of his short and stormy voyage. She looked down at him with tired eyes. She had done the right, and this was the end. There are some who may say that she had done what she thought was right, and this only seemed to be the end. It may be so. The Marquis de Gemosac was dumb for once. He looked round him with a half-defiant question in his eyes. Then he pointed a lean finger down toward the dead man's face. “Others may question,” he said, “but I know--I KNOW.” End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Hope, by Henry Seton Merriman