He opened his eyes when they turned him on his back.

“Well, old man, how do you feel?” Betty’s companion asked genially.

“All right,” MacRae said briefly.  He found that speech required effort.  His mind worked clearly enough, but his tongue was uncertain, his voice low-pitched, husky.  He turned his eyes on Betty.  She tried to smile.  But her lips quivered in the attempt.  MacRae looked at her curiously.  But he did not say anything.  In the face of accomplished facts, words were rather futile.

He closed his eyes again, only to get a mental picture of the Arrow leaping at him out of the gloom, the thunder of the swells bursting against the foot of the cliffs, of Steve lying on that ledge alone.  But nothing could harm Steve.  Storm and cold and pain and loneliness were nothing to him, now.

He heard Betty speak.

“Can we do anything more?”

“Um—­no,” the man answered.  “Not for some time, anyway.”

“Then I wish you would go back to the house and tell them,” Betty said.  “They’ll be worrying.  I’ll stay here.”

“I suppose it would be as well,” he agreed.  “I’ll come back.”

“There’s no need for either of you to stay here,” MacRae said wearily.  “You’ve stopped the bleeding, and you can’t do any more.  Go home and go to bed.  I’m as well alone.”

There was a brief interval of silence.  MacRae heard footsteps crossing the floor, receding, going down the steps.  He opened his eyes.  Betty Gower sat on a low box by his bed, her hands in her lap, looking at him wistfully.  She leaned a little toward him.

“I’m awfully sorry,” she whispered.

“So was the little boy who cut off his sister’s thumb with the hatchet,” MacRae muttered.  “But that didn’t help sister’s thumb.  If you’ll run down to old Peter Ferrara’s house and tell him what has happened, and then go home yourself, we’ll call it square.”

“I have already done that,” Betty said.  “Dolly is away.  The fishermen are bringing Steve Ferrara’s body to his uncle’s house.  They are going to try to save what is left of your boat.”

“It is kind of you, I’m sure, to pick up the pieces,” MacRae gibed.

“I am sorry,” the girl breathed.

“After the fact.  Belting around a point in the dark at train speed, regardless of the rules of the road.  Destroying a valuable boat, killing a man.  Property is supposed to be sacred—­if life has no market value.  Were you late for dinner?”

In his anger he made a quick movement with his arms, flinging the blanket off, sending intolerable pangs through his bruised and torn body.

Betty rose and bent over him, put the blanket back silently, tucked him in like a mother settling the cover about a restless child.  She did not say anything for a minute.  She stood over him, nervously plucking bits of lint off the blanket.  Her eyes grew wet.

“I don’t blame you for feeling that way,” she said at last.  “It was a terrible thing.  You had the right of way.  I don’t know why or how Robertson let it happen.  He has always been a careful navigator.  The nearness when he saw you under his bows must have paralyzed him, and with our speed—­oh, it isn’t any use, I know, to tell you how sorry I am.  That won’t bring that poor boy back to life again.  It won’t—­”