Captain Holt stooped closer and peered under the half-closed lids.

“Brown eyes,” she heard him mutter to himself, “just ’s the Swede told me.”  She knew their color; they had looked into her own too often.

Doctor John felt about with his hand and drew a small package of letters from inside the man’s shirt.  They were tied with a string and soaked with salt water.  This he handed to the captain.

The captain pulled them apart and examined them carefully.

“It’s him,” he said with a start, “it’s Bart!  It’s all plain now.  Here’s my letter,” and he held it up.  “See the printing at the top—­’Life-Saving Service’?  And here’s some more—­they’re all stuck together.  Wait! here’s one—­fine writing.”  Then his voice dropped so that only the doctor could hear:  “Ain’t that signed ‘Lucy’?  Yes—­’Lucy’—­and it’s an old one.”

The doctor waved the letters away and again laid his hand on the sufferer’s chest, keeping it close to his heart.  The captain bent nearer.  Jane, who, crazed with grief, had been caressing Archie’s cold cheeks, lifted her head as if aware of the approach of some crisis, and turned to where the doctor knelt beside the rescued man.  Lucy leaned forward with straining eyes and ears.

The stillness of death fell upon the small room.  Outside could be heard the pound and thrash of the surf and the moan of the gale; no human voice—­ men and women were talking in whispers.  One soul had gone to God and another life hung by a thread.

The doctor raised his finger.

The man’s face twitched convulsively, the lids opened wider, there came a short, inward gasp, and the jaw dropped.

“He’s dead,” said the doctor, and rose to his feet.  Then he took his handkerchief from his pocket and laid it over the dead man’s face.

As the words fell from his lips Lucy caught at the wall, and with an almost hysterical cry of joy threw herself into Jane’s arms.

The captain leaned back against the life-boat and for some moments his eyes were fixed on the body of his dead son.

“I ain’t never loved nothin’ all my life, doctor,” he said, his voice choking, “that it didn’t go that way.”

Doctor John made no reply except with his eyes.  Silence is ofttimes more sympathetic than the spoken word.  He was putting his remedies back into his bag so that he might rejoin Jane.  The captain continued: 

“All I’ve got is gone now—­the wife, Archie, and now Bart.  I counted on these two.  Bad day’s work, doctor—­bad day’s work.”  Then in a firm tone, “I’ll open the doors now and call in the men; we got to git these two bodies up to the Station, and then we’ll get ’em home somehow.”

Instantly all Lucy’s terror returned.  An unaccountable, unreasoning panic took possession of her.  All her past again rose before her.  She feared the captain now more than she had Bart.  Crazed over the loss of his son he would blurt out everything.  Max would hear and know—­know about Archie and Bart and all her life!