he _Hjalmar_, after a
long struggle, had lain down like a cab-horse and said to the tempest:
"Do what you like now!"

"Yes," the venerable head was piping. "Us can come out comfortable in
twenty minutes, unless the tide be setting east strong. And, as for
getting back, it'll be the same, other way round, if ye understand me."

There could be no question that Simeon had come out comfortable. But he
was the coxswain. The rowers seemed to be perspiringly aware that the
boat was vast and beamy.

"Shall we row up to it?" Simeon inquired, pointing to the wreck.

Then a pale face appeared above the gunwale, and an expiring, imploring
voice said: "No. We'll go back." Whereupon the pale face vanished again.

Denry had never before been outside the bay. In the navigation of
pantechnicons on the squall-swept basins of canals he might have been a
great master, but he was unfitted for the open sea. At that moment he
would have been almost ready to give the lifeboat and all that he owned
for the privilege of returning to land by train. The inward journey was
so long that Denry lost hope of ever touching his native island again.
And then there was a bump. And he disembarked, with hope burning up
again cheerfully in his bosom. And it was a quarter to six.

By the first post, which arrived at half-past seven, there came a brown
package. "The ring!" he thought, starting horribly. But the package was
a cube of three inches, and would have held a hundred rings. He undid
the cover, and saw on half a sheet of notepaper the words:--

"Thank you so much for the lovely time you gave me. I hope you will
like this, NELLIE."

He was touched. If Ruth was hard, mercenary, costly, her young and
ingenuous companion could at any rate be grateful and sympathetic. Yes,
he was touched. He had imagined himself to be dead to all human
affections, but it was not so. The package contained chocolate, and his
nose at once perceived that it was chocolate impregnated with lemon--the
surprising but agreeable compound accidentally invented by Nellie on the
previous day at the pier buffet. The little thing must have spent a part
of the previous afternoon in preparing it, and she must have put the
package in the post at Crewe. Secretive and delightful little thing!
After his recent experience beyond the bay he had imagined himself to be
incapable of ever eating again, but it was not so. The lemon gave a
peculiar astringent, appetising, _settling_ quality