e so good an' come
ashore an' see a poor girl? She's dyin'!"

The Doctor didn't need to be urged. He went ashore in the rowboat. In
a rough bunk in a dark corner of a fishing-hut lay a very pretty girl,
about eighteen years old.

All summer long, poor thing--the only woman among many men--she had
been cooking, mending, helping to clean and dry and salt the fish.

Nobody asked if she was tired. Nobody asked if she wanted a vacation.
She had done her faithful best--and now, worn out, she was cast aside
like an old shoe.

One look told the Doctor that she was dying.

The captain of the brigantine, who was tender-hearted, and really
cared for her, had decided that this was a case of typhoid. He told
the fishermen to keep away--for the germs might get into the fish they
were preparing to send off to market.

So he had been the nurse. But all he could do was feed her. For two
weeks--during part of which time she was unconscious--she had not been
washed, and her bed had not been changed.

Outside it was a dark night, and the fog hung low and menacing over
the water. The big trap-boat with six men, and the skipper's sons
among them, had been missing since morning.

The skipper had stayed home to take care of the poor little servant
girl. While he sat beside her wretched bunk, his mind was divided
between her plight and his anxiety for the six men out there in the
angry, ugly sea.

"I wonder where the b'ys are now," he muttered.

Then he would go to the door and peer out under his hand into the
night. Nothing there but the dark and the mystery.

"'Twas time they were back,--long, long ago!" he would say. "'Tis a
wonderful bad night for the fog. I doubt they'll find their way in. I
should 'a' gone out wi' them. But no, she needed me! Poor girl! The
Lord, He gives, an' the Lord He takes away: blessed be the name o' the
Lord!"

Wiping his eyes on his rough sleeve, the captain came back and helped
the Doctor put clean linen on the bed and wash the poor girl's grimy
face.

She was unconscious now: her life was ebbing fast.

The captain went to the door again and again. Outside there was no
sound but the low moaning of the night wind in the blackness. The
fishermen, afraid of what the mysterious disease might do for them,
were keeping their distance.

Suddenly as the captain glanced on the pale face of the girl, he
gasped.

"She's dead, Doctor, she's dead!" The Doctor felt her heart. It was
true. The spirit of t