"You are better now?" said Mr. Conroy. "Yes, I am better now," Ella replied mechanically. Her mind just yet only recognised one fact, that Conroy was by her side. He assisted her to rise. When she stood up and looked round, all the events of the afternoon flashed across her mind in a moment. What happy accident had brought Conroy, of all people in the world, to her rescue? But it was not a time to ask questions: that could be done afterwards. "The sooner we get ashore the better," said Conroy. "Are you well enough to venture?" "Quite well enough," answered Ella, with a rush of tears. "A little while ago I thought I should never set foot on shore again." "But what became of the boat that brought you to the wreck?--and what has become of Mr. Stone?" "The rope that held the boat became unfastened, and the tide carried it away," she slowly answered, after a long pause. But Hubert Stone, she mentally asked herself--what could have become of him: was he below still? Conroy repeated the question. He had heard from Mrs. Toynbee that it was Stone who had rowed Ella to the wreck. "He--he went into the cabin," said Ella, shrinking from speaking too openly. "He went down first of all to look for George Petherton, and found he was not on board. He was below when I fainted." "We'll soon see after him. You can be getting into the boat again," he added to the men. The cabin door had been broken open: by Stone, of course. Conroy only supposed it had been done in the wreck, and descended the stairs. Presently he returned. "Stone is not below. He is certainly not on board. I have looked everywhere." "But he must be on board," said Ella, who did not wish to leave him to his fate, although he had behaved so ill to her. "He had no means of getting away. The little boat was gone." "Unless he swam on shore," suggested Conroy. "A good swimmer could do it." One of the men looked up to speak. "Hubert Stone is one of the best swimmers we have, sir. The young lady knows it. He must ha' swum after the boat." "Look here," interposed the other man: "as we were nearing the brig here, I saw something moving through the water a goodish distance off; but whether it was a man, or what it was, I couldn't make out." "It must have been Stone that you saw," said Mr. Conroy. "In any case, he is not here. He must have gone to get help for you," he added to Ella: "a brave fellow!--though he had the tide all in his favour." That it was Stone the man had seen there could be little doubt of. Conroy helped Ella into the boat, and the men rowed away. It was almost dusk now. The great black bank of cloud was still climbing slowly up from the sea, and had shut out half the sky. The wind had risen considerably during the last half-hour, and the tide was rolling in in huge sullen masses of blue-green water, with here and there a white-topped wave. "We shall have plenty of dirty weather before morning," remarked one boatman to the other.