The voice was a bit hysterical, but the face was eloquent, loving, adoring.  It was too good to be true, though Jim was disposed to let the illusion prolong itself as far as possible.  He put up his hand and smoothed her face gently, in gratitude at seeing it kind once more.  Then he smiled foolishly.

“It’s great, isn’t it!” he remarked inanely, before thinking it necessary to remove his head.  Her face was still the face of tenderness, full of yearning.  It did not change.  She took a handkerchief from her pocket and carefully pressed it to his cheek and chin.  When she took it away, he saw that it was red.

“Lord, what a mess I’m making!” he exclaimed, trying at last to sit up.  As he did so, it all came back to him—­the flying shadow, the gun, the struggle.  He leaned over to peer again through the crossed wires of the deck railing, down into the water.  He turned back with an amazed expression.

“Did he jump overboard, honest-true, hanging on to that spike?”

Neither Aleck nor Agatha could say, nor yet Mr. Chamberlain, who had been searching the yacht.  Wherever it was, the rusty marlinespike had disappeared.  The rowboat, too, had gone into the darkness.  Jim got up, dazedly thinking for a moment that it was necessary for him to give chase, but he quickly sat down on the sail-cloth again, overcome with faintness and a dark pall before his eyes.

“You are not hurt badly?” The voice was still tender, and it was all for him!  As Jim heard it, the pall lifted, and his buoyant spirit came back to its own.  He laughed ringingly.

“Lord, no, not hurt.  But—­”

“But what?  What did you wish to say?”

“Is it true?  Are you here, by me, to stay?”

For answer she pressed his hand to her lips.

Aleck and Chamberlain, once assured that Jim was safe, went below to make a search, and Jim and Agatha were left together on the sail-cloth.  As they sat there, a young moon shone out delicately in the west, and dropped quickly down after the lost sun.

“It’s the first moon we’ve seen together!” said Jim.

“But we’ve watched the dawn.”

“Ah, yes; and such a dawn!”

Little by little, as they sat together, the story of the fight came out.  Jim told it bit by bit, not eager.  When it was done, Agatha was still puzzled.  “Why should he come here?  What could he do here?”

“I don’t know, though we shall probably find out soon enough.  But I don’t care, now that you are here.”

“James, dear, will you forgive me for this afternoon?”

“I’ll forgive you if you’ll take it all back, hide, hoofs and horns, for ever ’n ever, amen.”

“I take it back.  I never meant it.”

“Then may one ask why—­”

“Oh, James, I don’t know why.”

Anybody could have told them that it was only a phase of feminine panic in the face of the unknown, necessary as sneezing.  But, as Jim said, it didn’t matter.