A curling sea toppled over their heads and fell, a smashing weight, upon the _Fenique_. The motor-boat staggered under the impact of the blow. The cockpit was awash as Ralph stumbled down into it with Lorna in his arms. The girl struggled out of his grasp. She seized the rail, gripping it with both hands. "Conny! Save him!" she shrieked. At this juncture her anxiety for Degger seemed to mark a deeper interest than Ralph had suspected she felt for the man. But Ralph had first their ultimate safety to think of. He leaped for the wheel and relieved the strain under which the _Fenique_ labored. He payed off carefully until the motor-boat began to ride the billows more buoyantly. When he stoppered the wheel again and turned to aid Degger, Lorna was creeping aft with the evident intent of laying hold of the rope to which the man clung. But she did not possess the strength to drag him inboard. Ralph set her aside with a fending arm and seized the rope. With a long haul and a heave, he brought the gasping Degger under the rail of the motor-boat. As the craft rolled, Ralph leaned over the rail and seized the half drowned Degger just as the latter’s grip slipped from the rope. While the rail dipped to the running sea the rescuer heaved him in-board. Then Ralph leaped back to the wheel and righted the motor-boat again. When she was once more headed right, flying ahead of the blast, he glanced over his shoulder. Lorna was on her knees in the bottom of the boat with Conny Degger’s head in her lap. The tableau was somewhat startling. Of course, if she really cared for the fellow—— Then what Tobias Bassett had said about its being necessary for Lorna to marry a wealthy man flashed into Ralph’s mind. Degger certainly was not wealthy. Ralph had reason to know this to be a fact. If the Nicholets were in financial straits and looked to Lorna to make a moneyed marriage, the girl had picked the wrong partner in her match-making. Ralph did not feel any scorn for Lorna in this supposition. He only pitied her. Determined as she was not to marry Ralph, Endicott knew she must be forced by family pressure to accept the next best marriageable possibility. But he was sure Lorna was misinformed regarding Degger. Of course, the latter believed the Nicholets to be wealthy. He was, Ralph was confident, nothing more nor less than a fortune hunter. That his old friend and this Degger were mutually mistaken in each other’s financial affairs was not a situation from which Ralph could extract any amusement. Not at all! He hated to see Lorna waste any of her thought—perhaps a measure of her confidence—upon such a character as Degger. "She has gone through the wood and picked up a crooked stick, after all," Ralph reflected, while maneuvering the motor-boat. "I didn’t think she was such a little fool!"