Returning from one of these excursions, which had been a bit longer than he intended, he looked anxiously toward the fire before depositing his armful of driftwood.  The blaze had died down, but a good bed of coals remained; and upon this the young man expertly built up a new fire.  It crackled and blazed into life, throwing a ruddy glow over the shingle, the rocks behind, and the figure lying on the balsam couch.  James’s face was waxen in its paleness, save for two fiery spots on his cheeks; and as he lay he stirred constantly in a feverish unrest.  His bare feet were nearest the fire; his blue woollen trousers and shirt were only partly visible, being somewhat covered by a man’s tweed coat.

The fire lighted up, also, the figure of Agatha Redmond.  She was kneeling at the farther end of Jim’s couch, laying a white cloth, which had been wet, over his temples.  Her long dark hair was hanging just as it had dried, except that it was tied together low in the back with a string of slippery seaweed.  Her neck was bare, her feet also; her loose blouse had lost all semblance of a made-to-order garment, but it still covered her; while a petticoat that had once been black satin hung in stiff, salt-dried creases from her waist to a little below her knees.  She had the well-set head and good shoulders, with deep chest, which make any garb becoming; her face was bonny, even now, clouded as it was with anxiety and fatigue.  She greeted the young man eagerly on his return.

“If you could only find a little more fresh water, I am sure it would help.  The milk was good, only he would take so little.  I think I shall have to let you go this evening to hunt for the farm-house.”

“Yes, Mademoiselle,” the young man replied.  He had wanted to go earlier in the day, but the man was too ill and the woman too exhausted to be left alone.  He went on speaking slowly, after a pause.  “I can find the farm-house, I am sure, only it may take a little time.  Following the cattle would have been the quickest way; but I can find the cowpath soon, even as it is.  If you wouldn’t be uneasy with me gone, Mademoiselle!”

“Oh, no, we shall be all right now, till you can get back!” As she spoke, Agatha’s eyes rested questioningly on the youth who, ever since she had revived from her faint of exhaustion, had teased her memory.  He had seen them struggling in the sea, and had swum out to her aid, she knew; and after leaving her lying on a slimy, seaweed-covered rock, he had gone out again and brought in her companion in a far worse condition than herself.  The young man, also, was a survivor of the Jeanne D’Arc, having come from the disabled craft in the tiny rowboat that was now on the beach.  More than this she did not know, yet something jogged her memory every now and then—­something that would not shape itself definitely.  Indeed, she had been too much engrossed in the serious condition of her companion and the work necessary to make the camp, to spend any thought on unimportant speculations.