She uncovered her face sharply and looked at him, so that he clearly saw the ravages that her distress had wrought.  “That wasn’t what made him go,” she said.  “He wouldn’t have gone but for me.  It was I as made him go.  But I thought he’d be in time.  I hoped he’d be in time.”  Her voice rose wildly; she wrung her hands.  “Oh, can’t you do anything?  Can’t you take out the lifeboat?  There must be some way—­surely there must be some way—­of saving them!”

But Adam shook his head.  “He’s past our help,” he said.  “There’s no boat could live among them rocks in such a tide as this.  We couldn’t get anywhere near.  No—­no, there’s nothing we can do.  The lad’s gone—­my Rufus—­finest chap along the shore, if he was my son.  Never thought as he’d go before me—­never thought—­never thought!”

The loud roll of the waves filled the bitter silence that followed, but the battering of the rain upon the cottage roof was decreasing.  The storm was no longer overhead.

Adam leaned on the back of a chair with his head in his hands.  All the wiry activity seemed to have gone out of him.  He looked old and broken.

The girl stood motionless behind him.  A strange impassivity had succeeded her last fruitless appeal, as though through excess of suffering her faculties were numbed, animation itself were suspended.  She leaned against the wall, staring with wide, tragic eyes at the flame of the lamp that stood in the window.  Her arms hung stiffly at her sides, and the hands were clenched.  She seemed to be gazing upon unutterable things.

There was nothing to be done—­nothing to be done!  Till the waves had spent their fury, till that raging sea went down, they were as helpless as babes to stay the hand of Fate.  No boat could live in that fearful turmoil of water.  Adam had said it, and she knew that what he said was true, knew by the utter dejection of his attitude, the completeness of his despair.  She had never seen Adam in despair before; probably no one had ever seen him as he was now.  He was a man to strain every nerve while the faintest ray of hope remained.  He had faced many a furious storm, saved many a life that had been given up for lost by other men.  But now he could do nothing, and he crouched there—­an old and broken man—­for the first time realising his helplessness.

A long time passed.  The only sound within the cottage was the ticking of a grandfather-clock in a corner, while without the great sound of the breaking seas filled all the world.  The storm above had passed.  Now the thunder-blast no longer shook the cottage.  A faint greyness had begun to show beyond the lamp in the window.  The dawn was drawing near.

As one awaking from a trance of terrible visions, the girl drew a deep breath and spoke: 

“Adam!”

He did not stir.  He had not stirred for the greater part of an hour.

She made a curiously jerky movement, as if she wrenched herself free from some constricting hold.  She went to the bowed, despairing figure.