"I think—think not." There was a note of hesitancy in her voice and Lavelle caught it.

"Is there nothing you can do, Miss Granville?"

"She is burning with a terrible fever."

"Water? Is that it?" he whispered very low.

"Yes, but she told me I was not to ask. She is very—plucky."

"And you were afraid to come to me? Afraid I would refuse?"

"Yes," she answered slowly. "But I am here and—and I did not ask. I don't know why I came."

Without another word Lavelle flashed the torch on a breaker at his feet. At a nod of his head she slipped down from the seat to the bottom of the boat. He handed her a tin cup from the air-tank locker. Somebody stirred forward and he snapped out the light until they were still. The spirit of conspiracy made her crouch lower. She hardly breathed until he turned on the light again.

The torch made her glorious head glow vividly. It transformed the thick braids falling over her shoulders and across her bosom into bands of filagreed gold. A mist of pity swept his vision.

"You take a drink; you are thirsty, too," he said, bending so low that his lips nearly touched her head. She turned her face up to him quickly and shook her head.

"It wouldn't—be fair."

"I will make it fair," he answered.

Impulsively, with a thirst which burned her throat—a thirst such as she never dreamed she would know—she drank. It was only a sup that she took, but in the instant she wet her lips she was ashamed of what this man might think of her. She started up quickly, taking the hand he held out to her.

"You have not done wrong," he whispered. She shuddered that he had sensed her thought. "I will straighten this out. Say to Mrs. Moore that I sent the water."

Turning to go forward, Emily paused with a start.

"See!" she exclaimed. "What is that?"

She pointed to where a light moved low along the dip of the southern horizon. 

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