Something of all this passed through Agatha’s mind, as she tried to read Jim’s face; then, as he stirred uneasily and tried to throw off the light boughs that she had spread over him, she got up and went to the edge of the water to moisten afresh the bandage for his forehead.  Involuntarily she shuddered at sight of the dark water, though the lapping waves, pushing up farther and farther with the incoming tide, were gentle enough to soothe a child.

She hurried back to Jim’s couch and laid the cooling compress across his forehead.  The balsam boughs about them breathed their fragrance on the night air, and the pleasant gloom rested their tired eyes.  Gradually he quieted down again; his restlessness ceased.  The long twilight deepened into darkness, or rather into that thin luminous blue shade which is the darkness of starlit summer nights.  The sea washed the beach with its murmuring caress; somewhere in the thicket above a night-bird called.

In a cranny of the rocks Agatha hollowed out the sand, still warm beneath the surface here where the sun had lain on it through long summer days, and made for herself a bed and coverlet and pillow all at once.  With the sand piled around and over her, she could not really suffer; and she was mortally tired.

She looked up toward the clear stars, Vega and the jeweled cross almost in the zenith, and ruddy Antares in the body of the shining Scorpion.  They were watching her, she thought, to-night in her peace as they had watched her last night in her struggle, and as they would watch after all her days and nights were done.  And then she thought no more.  Sleep, blessed gift, descended upon her.

CHAPTER X

THE HEART OF YOUTH

“Agatha Redmond, can you hear me?”

She caught the voice faintly, as if it were a child’s cry.

“I’m right here, yes; only wait just a second.”  She could not instantly free herself from her sandy coverings, but she was wide awake almost at the first words James had spoken.  Faint as the voice had been, she recognized the natural tones, the strongest he had uttered since coming out of the water.

The night had grown cold and dark, and at first she was a trifle bewildered.  She was also stiff and sore, almost beyond bearing.  She had to creep along the sand to where Jim lay.  The fire had burned wholly out, and the sand felt damp as she crawled over it.  When she came near, she reached out her hand and laid it on Jim’s forehead.  He was shivering with cold.

“You poor man!  And I sleeping while I ought to be taking care of you!  I’ll make the fire and get some milk; there is still a little left.”

As she tried to make her aching bones lift her to her feet, she became aware that the man was fumbling at his coverings and trying to say something.

She bent down to hear his words, which were incredibly faint.