The store-room was in gloom.  That scared me at first; I thought night had come, and remembered the light.  But then I saw the gloom was of a storm.  The floor was shining wet, and the water in my face was spray, flung up through the open door.  When I ran to close it, it almost made me dizzy to see the gray-and-white breakers marching past.  The land was gone; the sky shut down heavy overhead; there was a piece of wreckage on the back of a swell, and the Jacob’s-ladder was carried clean away.  How that sea had picked up so quick I can’t think.  I looked at my watch and it wasn’t four in the afternoon yet.

When I closed the door, sir, it was almost dark in the store-room.  I’d never been in the Light before in a gale of wind.  I wondered why I was shivering so, till I found it was the floor below me shivering, and the walls and stair.  Horrible crunchings and grindings ran away up the tower, and now and then there was a great thud somewhere, like a cannon-shot in a cave.  I tell you, sir, I was alone, and I was in a mortal fright for a minute or so.  And yet I had to get myself together.  There was the light up there not tended to, and an early dark coming on and a heavy night and all, and I had to go.  And I had to pass that door.

You’ll say it’s foolish, sir, and maybe it was foolish.  Maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten.  But I began thinking of that door up there the minute I set foot on the stair, and all the way up through that howling dark well I dreaded to pass it.  I told myself I wouldn’t stop.  I didn’t stop.  I felt the landing underfoot and I went on, four steps, five—­and then I couldn’t.  I turned and went back.  I put out my hand and it went on into nothing.  That door, sir, was open again.

I left it be; I went on up to the light-room and set to work.  It was Bedlam there, sir, screeching Bedlam, but I took no notice.  I kept my eyes down.  I trimmed those seven wicks, sir, as neat as ever they were trimmed; I polished the brass till it shone, and I dusted the lens.  It wasn’t till that was done that I let myself look back to see who it was standing there, half out of sight in the well.  It was her, sir.

“Where’d you come from?” I asked.  I remember my voice was sharp.

“Up Jacob’s-ladder,” said she, and hers was like the syrup of flowers.

I shook my head.  I was savage, sir.  “The ladder’s carried away.”

“I cast it off,” said she, with a smile.

“Then,” said I, “you must have come while I was asleep.”  Another thought came on me heavy as a ton of lead.  “And where’s he?” said I.  “Where’s the boat?”

“He’s drowned,” said she, as easy as that.  “And I let the boat go adrift.  You wouldn’t hear me when I called.”

“But look here,” said I.  “If you came through the store-room, why didn’t you wake me up?  Tell me that!” It sounds foolish enough, me standing like a lawyer in court, trying to prove she couldn’t be there.