at she would do then--"I shall go straight back to Rex--my
husband!"

She knew John Brooks would not return home for some time to come, and
she would not go back to Septima. She made up her mind she would
certainly go to Rex. She would wait at the depot, and, if Rex did not
come in on the early train, she would go back at once to Allendale.
Her purse, with twenty dollars in it--which seemed quite a fortune to
Daisy--was luckily in her pocket, together with half of an apple and a
biscuit. The healthful exercise of rowing, together with the fresh,
cool breeze, gave Daisy a hearty appetite, and the apple and biscuit
afforded her quite a pleasant lunch.

Poor Daisy! The pretty little girl-bride had no more thought of danger
than a child. She had no premonition that every moment the little
boat, drifting rapidly along with the tide, was bearing her rapidly
onward toward death and destruction.

Daisy paid little heed to the dark rolling clouds that were slowly
obscuring the brilliant sunshine, or the swirl and dash of the waves
that were rocking her little boat so restlessly to and fro. The hours
seemed to slip heedlessly by her. The soft gloaming seemed to fall
about her swiftly and without warning.

"I must turn my boat about at once!" cried Daisy, in alarm. "I am
quite a long way from the shore!"

At that moment the distant rumbling roar of thunder sounded dismally
over the leaden-gray, white-capped water; and the wind, rising
instantly into a fierce gale, hurled the dark storm-clouds across the
sky, blotting the lurid glow of sunset and mantling the heavens above
her in its dusky folds.

Daisy was brave of heart, but in the face of such sudden and
unlooked-for danger her courage failed her. The pretty rose-bloom
died away from her face, and her beautiful blue eyes expanded wide
with terror. She caught her breath with a sob, and, seizing the oar
with two soft, childish hands, made a desperate attempt to turn the
boat. The current resisted her weak effort, snapping the oar in twain
like a slender twig and whirling it from her grasp.

"Rex! Rex!" she cried out, piteously, stretching out her arms, "save
me! Oh, I am lost--lost! Heaven pity me!"

The night had fallen swiftly around her. Out, alone, on the wild,
pitiless, treacherous waves--alone with the storm and the darkness!

The storm had now commenced in earnest, beating furiously against the
little boat, and lashing the mad waves into seething foam as they
da