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But Adam shook his head. “He’s past our help,” he said. “There’s no boat could live among them rocks in such a tide as this. We couldn’t get anywhere near. No–no, there’s nothing we can do. The lad’s gone–my Rufus–finest chap along the shore, if he was my son. Never thought as he’d go before me–never thought–never thought!”

The loud roll of the waves filled the bitter silence that followed, but the battering of the rain upon the cottage roof was decreasing. The storm was no longer overhead.

Adam leaned on the back of a chair with his head in his hands. All the wiry activity seemed to have gone out of him. He looked old and broken.

The girl stood motionless behind him. A strange impassivity had succeeded her last fruitless appeal, as though through excess of suffering her faculties were numbed, animation itself were suspended. She leaned against the wall, staring with wide, tragic eyes at the flame of the lamp that stood in the window. Her arms hung stiffly at her sides, and the hands were clenched. She seemed to be gazing upon unutterable things.

There was nothing to be done–nothing to be done! Till the waves had spent their fury, till that raging sea went down, they were as helpless as babes to stay the hand of Fate. No boat could live in that fearful turmoil of water. Adam had said it, and she knew that what he said was true, knew by the utter dejection of his attitude, the completeness of his despair. She had never seen Adam in despair before; probably no one had ever seen him as he was now. He was a man to strain every nerve while the faintest ray of hope remained. He had faced many a furious storm, saved many a life that had been given up for lost by other men. But now he could do nothing, and he crouched there–an old and broken man–for the first time realising his helplessness.

A long time passed. The only sound within the cottage was the ticking of a grandfather-clock in a corner, while without the great sound of the breaking seas filled all the world. The storm above had passed. Now the thunder-blast no longer shook the cottage. A faint greyness had begun to show beyond the lamp in the window. The dawn was drawing near.

As one awaking from a trance of terrible visions, the girl drew a deep breath and spoke:

“Adam!”

He did not stir. He had not stirred for the greater part of an hour.

She made a curiously jerky movement, as if she wrenched herself free from some constricting hold. She went to the bowed, despairing figure.

“Adam, the day is breaking. The tide must be on the turn. Shan’t we go?”

He stood up with the gesture of an old man. “What’s the good?” he said. “Do you think I want to see my boy’s dead body left behind by the sea?”

She shivered at the question. “But we can’t stay here,” she urged. “Aunt Liza, you know–she’ll be wondering.”

“Ah!” He passed his hand over his eyes. He was swaying a little as he stood. She supported his elbow, for he seemed to have lost control of his limbs. He stared at her in a dazed way. “You’d better go and tell your Aunt Liza,” he said. “I think I’ll stay here a bit longer. Maybe my boy’ll come and talk to me if I’m alone. We’re partners, you know, and we lived here a good many years alone together. He wouldn’t leave me–not for the long voyage–without a word. Yes, you go, my dear, you go! I’ll stay here and wait for him.”

She saw that no persuasion of hers would move him, and it seemed useless to remain. An intolerable restlessness urged her, moreover, to be gone. The awful inertia of the past two hours had turned into a fevered desire for action. It was the swing of the pendulum, and she felt that if she did not respond to it she would go mad.