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Mab’s hands slackened from Merefleet’s clasp, and suddenly she stretched out her arms to the sky. The holiest of all earthly raptures was on her face.

Then with a sharp sigh she came to herself and turned back to Merefleet. A piteous little smile hovered about her quivering lips.

“I guess I’ve been dreaming, Big Bear,” she said. “Such a dream! Oh, such a gorgeous, heavenly dream!”

And she hid her face on his breast and burst into tears.

CHAPTER XIII

Before the sun set they were sighted by the cruiser returning to her anchorage outside the little fishing-harbour. Mab, worn out by hunger and exposure, had slipped back to her former position in the bottom of the boat. She was half asleep and seemed dazed when Merefleet told her of their approaching deliverance. But she clung fast to him when a boat from the cruiser came alongside; and he lifted her into it himself.

“By Jove, sir, you’ve had a bad time!” said a young officer in the boat.

“Thirty hours,” said Merefleet briefly.

He kept his arm about the girl, though his brain swam dizzily. And Mab, consciously or unconsciously, held his hand in a tight clasp.

Merefleet felt as if she were definitely removed out of his reach when she was lifted from his hold at length, and the impression remained with him after he gained the cruiser’s deck. He met with most courteous solicitude on all sides and was soon on the high-road to recovery.

Later in the evening, when Mab also was sufficiently restored to appear on deck, the cruiser steamed into Silverstrand Harbour, and the two voyagers were landed by one of her boats, in the midst of great rejoicing on the quay.

Seton, who had long since returned from a fruitless search for tidings, was among the crowd of spectators. He said little by way of greeting, and there was considerable strain apparent in his manner towards Merefleet. He hurried his cousin back to the hotel with a haste not wholly bred of the moment’s expediency. Merefleet followed at a more leisurely pace. He made no attempt to join them, however. He had done his part. There remained no more to do. With a heavy sense of irrevocable loss he went to bed and slept the dreamless sleep of exhaustion for many hours.

The adventure was over. It had ended with a tameness that gave it an almost commonplace aspect. But Merefleet’s resolution was of stout manufacture.

The consequences of that night and day of peril involved his whole future. Merefleet recognised this and resolved to act forthwith, in defiance of Seton or any other obstacle. He did not realise till later that there was opposed to him a strength which even his will was powerless to overcome. He did not even take the possibility of this into consideration.

He was very sure of himself and confident of success when he descended late on the following morning to a solitary breakfast–sure of himself, sure of the smile of that fickle goddess Fortune–sure, thrice sure, of the woman he loved.

And he watched for her coming with a rapture that deprived him of his appetite.

But Mab did not come.

Instead, Herbert Seton presently strolled into the room, greeted him, and paused by his table.

“Be good enough to join me on the terrace presently, will you?” he said abruptly.

And Merefleet nodded with a chill sense of foreboding. But his resolution was unalterable. This young man should not, he was determined, by any means cheat him now of his heart’s desire. Matters had gone too far for that. He followed Seton almost at once and found him in a quiet corner, smoking. Merefleet sat down beside him and also began to smoke. There was a touch of hostility about Seton that he was determined to ignore.

“Well,” said Seton at length, with characteristic bluntness, “so you have done it in spite of my warning the other night.”

Merefleet looked at him. Was he expected to render an account of his doings to this man who was at least ten years his junior, he wondered, with faint amusement?