“It is a fit gate to enter heaven by,” said John, coming to her side.  “We have done all we can,” he added.

At the moment the bows dipped with a prodigious sea.  Somebody forward sang out, “She’s settling, sir! she’s settling, sir!” The cry ran along the deck like fire:  there was one panicstricken shriek that followed, and the men had jumped for the boats, into which water and provision had been already thrown.  Reyburn came staggering up the companion-way with Helen.  The dingy and one of the quarter-boats were already swamped in the wild haste:  the men were crowding into the other, which had been safely lowered.

“You brutes!” the captain shouted, “are you going to leave the women?”

“Let them come, then,” answered a voice, “and make haste about it;” and Lilian found herself drawn forward and looking over the side into the shadow below.

“Are you going, John?” she said hurriedly.

“No, darling:  it is impossible, you see, but—­”

“Nor I, either,” she answered quickly.

“Lilian!”

“No,” she said, “no!  We were to be together in life, and we shall be in death.  Oh, John, do you think I can leave you now?”

“Make haste about it,” was repeated harshly from the boat.

“I am going to stay,” repeated Lilian firmly.

“Here,” cried Reyburn, as he drew up the ropes to bind them round Helen’s waist.  “Take her.”  But the boat was already clear of the ship and away; and he flung the ropes down again with a motion of abhorrence, and stood leaning against the stump of the mast, where he could hear the murmurs of John and Lilian, straining his ears to listen, as if he must needs torment himself—­to listen to those few low, fervent whispers, with one eager to pour out the love so long restrained, the other to receive it—­both in the face of death making the life so lately found too sweet a thing to leave.

Soon the little company remaining on the wreck had clustered around that portion of it; the captain and Mr. Mason were near by, and Lilian’s mother sat beside her and kept her hand; Mr. Sterling, not far off, held Helen, who lay faint with fright—­faint too with many a pang, snatched as she had been from a dream of warmth and joy to a nightmare of horror; one moment ruling in a heart that in the next moment had cast her forth to be trampled on; bewildered by the repugnance she had too plainly seen in the face of her passionate lover of two hours ago; half heartbroken with the remembrance of the tone in which he had called to the crew of the quarter-boat to take her, and cold with the awful expectancy of the moment.  The moon swam slowly up, and the sky cleared about her; the sea rose and fell less violently, its dark expanse everywhere running fire; but the broken yacht still rolled like a log, and they clung to each other as she rolled.  She settled slowly, and another hour had passed and left her still afloat.