As she knelt by Jim's side, covering his feet with the coat and heaping the fir boughs over him, she paused to look at his unconscious face. She knew now that he did not belong to the crew of the _Jeanne D'Arc_; but of his outward circumstances she knew nothing more. Thirty she guessed him to be, thereby coming within four years of the truth. His short mustache concealed his mouth, and his eyes were closed. It was almost like looking at the mask of a face. The rough beard of a week's growth made a deep shadow over the lower part of his face; and yet, behind the mask, she thought she could see some token of the real man, not without his attributes of divinity. In the ordeal of the night before he had shown the highest order of patience, endurance and courage, together with a sweetness of temper that was itself lovable. But beyond this, what sort of man was he? Agatha could not tell. She had seen many men of many types, and perhaps she recognized James as belonging to a type; but if so, it was the type that stands for the best of New England stock. In the centuries back it may have brought forth fanatics and extremists; at times it may have built up its narrow walls of prejudice and pride; but at the core it was sound and manly, and responsive to the call of the spirit. Something of all this passed through Agatha's mind, as she tried to read Jim's face; then, as he stirred uneasily and tried to throw off the light boughs that she had spread over him, she got up and went to the edge of the water to moisten afresh the bandage for his forehead. Involuntarily she shuddered at sight of the dark water, though the lapping waves, pushing up farther and farther with the incoming tide, were gentle enough to soothe a child. She hurried back to Jim's couch and laid the cooling compress across his forehead. The balsam boughs about them breathed their fragrance on the night air, and the pleasant gloom rested their tired eyes. Gradually he quieted down again; his restlessness ceased. The long twilight deepened into darkness, or rather into that thin luminous blue shade which is the darkness of starlit summer nights. The sea washed the beach with its murmuring caress; somewhere in the thicket above a night-bird called. In a cranny of the rocks Agatha hollowed out the sand, still warm beneath the surface here where the sun had lain on it through long summer days, and made for herself a bed and coverlet and pillow all at once. With the sand piled around and over her, she could not really suffer; and she was mortally tired. She looked up toward the clear stars, Vega and the jeweled cross almost in the zenith, and ruddy Antares in the body of the shining Scorpion. They were watching her, she thought, to-night in her peace as they had watched her last night in her struggle, and as they would watch after all her days and nights were done. And then she thought no more. Sleep, blessed gift, descended upon her. CHAPTER X THE HEART OF YOUTH