James’s voice died away into incoherence and at last into silence.  Agatha, holding his hands in hers, watched him as he sank away from her into some realm whither she could not follow.  Either his hour of sanity and calmness had passed, and fever had taken hold upon his system; or fatigue, mental and physical, had overpowered him once more.  Presently she dropped his hand gently, looked to the coverings of his couch, and settled herself down again to rest.

But no more sleep came to her eyes that night.  She thought over all that James had said, remembering his words vividly.  Then her thoughts went back over the years, recalling she knew not what irrelevant matters from the past.  Perhaps by some underlying law of association, there came to her mind, also, the words of the song she had sung on the Sunday which James had referred to—­

  “Free of my pain, free of my burden of sorrow,
  At last I shall see thee—­”

What ages it was since she had sung that song!  And this man, this James Hambleton, it appeared, had heard her sing it; and somehow, by fate, he had been tossed into the same adventure with herself.

Unconsciously, Agatha’s generous heart began to swell with pride in James’s strength and courage, with gratitude for his goodness to her, and with an almost motherly pity for his present plight.  She would admit no more than that; but that, she thought, bound her to him by ties that would never break.  He would always be different to her, by reason of that night and what she chose to term his splendid heroism.  She had seen him in his hour of strength, that hour when the overman makes half-gods out of mortals.  It was the heart of youth, plus the endurance of the man, that had saved them both.  It had been a call to action, dauntlessly answered, and he himself had avowed that the struggle, the effort, even the final pain, were “worth living for!” Thinking of his white face and feeble voice, she prayed that the high gods might not regard them worth dying for.

CHAPTER XI

THE HOME PORT

The darkness of the night slowly lifted, revealing only a gray, leaden sky.  There was no dawn such as had gladdened their hearts the morning before, no fresh awakening of the day.  Instead, the coldness and gloom of the night seemed but to creep a little farther away, leaving its shadow over the world.  A drizzling rain began to fall, and the wanderers on the beach were destined to a new draft of misery.  Only Agatha watched, however; James gave no sign of caring, or even of knowing, whether the sun shone or hid its face.

He had slept fitfully since their hour of wakefulness together in the night, and several times he had shown signs of extreme restlessness.  At these periods he would talk incoherently, Agatha being able to catch only a word now and then.  Once he endeavored to get up, bent, apparently, upon performing some fancied duty far away.  Agatha soothed him, talked to him as a mother talks to a sick child, cajoled and commanded him; and though he was restless and voluble, yet he obeyed her readily enough.