round him, but
his attention speedily became concentrated on one face. The owner of it,
he judged, was not more than nineteen years of age, and the face--at
least so it seemed to Stanford at the time--was the most beautiful he
had ever beheld. There was an expression of sweet gladness upon it until
her eyes met his, then the joy faded from the face, and a look of dismay
took its place. The girl seemed to catch her breath in fear, and tears
filled her eyes.

[Illustration: "HE IS UNDOUBTEDLY DEAD."]

"Oh," she cried, "he is going to live." She covered her face with her
hands, and sobbed.

Stanford closed his eyes wearily. "I am evidently insane," he said to
himself. Then, losing faith in the reality of things, he lost
consciousness as well, and when his senses came to him again he found
himself lying on a bed in a clean but scantily furnished room. Through
an open window came the roar of the sea, and the thunderous boom of the
falling waves brought to his mind the experiences through which he had
passed. The wreck and the struggle with the waves he knew to be real,
but the episode on the beach he now believed to have been but a vision
resulting from his condition.

[Illustration: "A PLACID-FACED NURSE STOOD BY HIS BED."]

A door opened noiselessly, and, before he knew of anyone's entrance, a
placid-faced nurse stood by his bed and asked him how he was.

"I don't know. I am at least alive."

The nurse sighed, and cast down her eyes. Her lips moved, but she said
nothing. Stanford looked at her curiously. A fear crept over him that
perhaps he was hopelessly crippled for life, and that death was
considered preferable to a maimed existence. He felt wearied, though not
in pain, but he knew that sometimes the more desperate the hurt, the
less the victim feels it at first.

"Are--are any of my--my bones broken, do you know?" he asked.

"No. You are bruised, but not badly hurt. You will soon recover."

"Ah!" said Stanford, with a sigh of relief. "By the way," he added, with
sudden interest, "who was that girl who stood near me as I lay on the
beach?"

"There were several."

"No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a
halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head."

"We speak not of our women in words like those," said the nurse,
severely; "you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow."

Stanford smiled. "Words matter little," he said.

"We must be temperate in sp