He mounted softly to the lamp room. He felt that he had somehow been indelicate in listening to that cry of the girl’s burdened heart. He had looked upon something which she had wished to keep hidden—a secret that Lorna had heretofore denied. Tobias’s weather-blown face was puckered into a very serious expression. Used as he was to the sea and sea-going, having taken a man’s part in the trade all his days, Ralph’s peril aboard the _Nelly G._ seemed a matter of course in his mind. His sister’s inbred terror of the sea (shared by so many longshore women) made little impression on Tobias Bassett. But the sudden revelation of Lorna’s despair shook his calmness. He had loved her ever since she and Ralph had toddled along the beach in rompers, each clinging to one of his hairy, tar-stained fingers. Now that she had grown to beautiful womanhood he was both fond of her and proud of her and had always considered that her growth and advancement was partly due to his watchful care during the long summers she had played along the beach. Her deep concern now because of the gale and its threat began strongly to affect the lightkeeper. Under the depression of his discovery Tobias forgot to exult that at least half his matchmaking plans had come to fruition. Lorna loved Ralph! If that was the _Nelly G._ out yonder—and he believed it was—and if Ralph was aboard her, what could he do to avert a calamity? Aside from his personal feeling for Ralph Endicott, the thought that Lorna was suffering, sobbing and praying in that whitewashed cell downstairs fanned into flame the lightkeeper’s desire to help. What could he do? Tobias shook his head doubtfully. He took down the long telescope from its beckets against the rear wall of the lamp room and went forward to the great window. He had tightened the broad flanges that held the panes in place so that they no longer rattled. But there was no lessening of the voice of the gale. The rush of the wind past the vibrating tower still sounded a threatening tocsin. Tobias adjusted the spy glass and focused it with practiced hand and eye upon the spot where the tossing masts of the laboring vessel heaved ever and anon into view. There was some lower canvas set. The craft was beating up the coast and was already much nearer the lighthouse than when he had last viewed it. "She must be the _Nelly G._," muttered the lightkeeper. "Ain’t no two ways about it. But what can have happened to her? Bob Pritchett is a purt’ good navigator, I do allow. I don’t see, after he picked up Ralph (that must ha’ been arranged between ’em by telegraph) why the _Netty G._ didn’t go kiting out to sea, this gale comin’ so plain and all! "It’s a puzzle. Mm-m! Easy enough to see, though, why the crew at Lower Trillion ain’t done nothing for her even if she is showing distress signals. Puttin’ out their old lifeboat in the teeth of this wind would be just about suicidal, I give it as my opinion.