She was panting, also, but she was not looking at him. She was rowing with all her might, and gazing fearfully over her shoulder. “Are you strong enough to help me row?” she asked breathlessly. “We must head her away from here, out of this tide. And I'm afraid that I can't do it alone.” He raised his head and looked over the rail. The breakers were alarmingly close. He scrambled to the thwart, pushed her aside and seized the oars. She resisted. “Only one,” she gasped. “I can manage the other.” So, each with an oar, they fought the tide, and won--but by the narrowest of margins. The dory edged into stiller and shoaler water, crept out of the eddying channel over the flat where the depth was but a scant four feet, turned almost by inches, and, at last, slid up on the sandy beach below the bungalow. The girl sat bowed over the handle of her oar, her breast heaving. She said nothing. Her companion likewise said nothing. Staggering, he stepped over the side, walked a few feet up the beach, and then tumbled in an unconscious heap on the sand. He was not unconscious long, being a healthy and robust young fellow. His first thought, upon opening his eyes, was that he must close them again as quickly as possible because he wanted the dream to continue. To lie with one's head in the lap of an angel, while that angel strokes your forehead and cries over you and begs you for her sake not to die, is too precious a delusion to lose. But the opening of one's eyes is a mistake under such circumstances, and he had made it. The angel's next remark was entirely unromantic and practical. “Are you better?” she asked. “You're all right now, aren't you?” Her patient's reply was also a question, and irrelevant. “DO you care?” he asked faintly. “Are you better?” she asked in return. “Did you get my note? The note I put under the door?” “Answer me. Are you all right again?” “You answer ME. Did you get my note?” “Yes. . . . Don't try to get up. You're not strong enough yet. You must wait here while I go and get you some--” “Don't go!” He almost shouted it. “If--if you do I'll--I'll--I think I'm going to faint again.” “Oh, no, you're not. And I must go and get you some brandy or something. Stay just where you are.” “Ruth Graham, if you go away now, I'll go with you, if I have to crawl. Maybe I can't walk, but I swear I'll crawl after you on my hands and knees unless you answer my question. DO you care enough for me to wait?” She looked out at the little bay, at the narrow, wicked tide race, at the breakers beyond. Then she looked down again at him. “Yes,” she said. . . . “OH, are you going to faint again? Don't! Please don't!” Russell Agnew Brooks, the late “John Brown,” opened his eyes. “I am not going to faint,” he observed. “I was merely trying to realize that I was fully conscious.” Some time after this--hours and minutes do not count in paradise--he remembered the item in the paper.