he was swept along steadily towards
the Gate, the whitening bar, and the open sea.

She knew now what it all meant. This was what she had come for; this
was the end! Beyond, only a little beyond, just a few moments longer to
wait, and then, out there among the breakers was the rest that she had
longed for but had not dared to seek. It was not her fault; they could
not blame HER. He would come back and never know what had happened--nor
even know how she had tried to atone for her deceit. And he would find
his house in possession of--of--those devils! No! No! she must not die
yet, at least not until she had warned the Fort. She seized the oars
again with frenzied strength; the boat had stopped under the unwonted
strain, staggered, tried to rise in an uplifted sea, took part of it
over her bow, struck down Mrs. Bunker under half a ton of blue water
that wrested the oars from her paralyzed hands like playthings, swept
them over the gunwale, and left her lying senseless in the bottom of the
boat.

*****

"Hold har-rd--or you'll run her down."

"Now then, Riley,--look alive,--is it slapin' ye are!"

"Hold yer jaw, Flanigan, and stand ready with the boat-hook. Now then,
hold har-rd!"

The sudden jarring and tilting of the water-logged boat, a sound of
rasping timbers, the swarming of men in shirtsleeves and blue trousers
around her, seemed to rouse her momentarily, but she again fainted away.

When she struggled back to consciousness once more she was wrapped in a
soldier's jacket, her head pillowed on the shirt-sleeve of an artillery
corporal in the stern sheets of that eight-oared government barge
she had remembered. But the only officer was a bareheaded, boyish
lieutenant, and the rowers were an athletic but unseamanlike crew of
mingled artillerymen and infantry.

"And where did ye drift from, darlint?"

Mrs. Bunker bridled feebly at the epithet.

"I didn't drift. I was going to the Fort."

"The Fort, is it?"

"Yes. I want to see the general."

"Wadn't the liftenant do ye? Or shure there's the adjutant; he's a foine
man."

"Silence, Flanigan," said the young officer sharply. Then turning to
Mrs. Bunker he said, "Don't mind HIM, but let his wife take you to the
canteen, when we get in, and get you some dry clothes."

But Mrs. Bunker, spurred to convalescence at the indignity, protested
stiffly, and demanded on her arrival to be led at once to the general's
quarters. A few officers, who had been attracted