blonde stalwart youth leaped ashore. The old man fell upon his neck
with tears and murmured ejaculations of gratitude and welcome; but
young impatient hands pushed him not ungently aside, and a youthful
voice, high and intense from anxiety, urgently exclaimed:

"My mother! How is my mother?"

"She yet breathes, thank God. She has been longing for your coming as
a suffering saint longs for heaven. She must see you before she dies!"

The young man turned a little aside with down-bent head. His positive
blue eyes looked almost feverishly bright; and the lip, on which he
had unconsciously bitten hard, now released from pressure, quivered
perceptibly; but with the unwillingness or inability of youth to admit
the inevitableness of a great grief he burst forth with:

"Is that all you have to say to me?" And then, as his keen eye noticed
the tears still undried upon the cheeks of the old man, he sighed
heavily. "Can nothing be done? Is there no help? It doesn't seem
possible!" He ground his heel heavily into the sand. "Say something,
Tredway," he entreated, "anything with a gleam of hope in it."

Tredway shook his head. "The only hope that remains is that you will
reach home in time to receive her last words. This is the second time
that I have come down expecting to meet you."

The young fellow with his erect military air and noticeably handsome
face betrayed a remote consciousness that he was perhaps worth the
trouble of coming after twice. As they together hastened up from the
beach the younger of the two briefly narrated the cause of his