shrinking and shivering in the stern of the canoe; and then she looked back to the other man's face, and blue fires seemed to leap into her eyes.

"With you—no, I'm not afraid," she said.

She leaned toward him, nearer and nearer, as the water rose about them, looking straight into his eyes. They both knew in that moment that it was the man and the woman who had triumphed, and that for them the lady and the gentleman were dead.

"I'm not afraid—with you," she said again.

Her lips trembled, and her golden hair swept over his breast, and Thomas Jefferson Brown bent down and kissed her once upon the mouth. Then he said, as if he were speaking to a little girl:

"Do not be afraid, and hold to the edge of the canoe when it fills. The wind will carry us to Harrison's Island."

He turned to Lord Meton, and repeated the words; and just then the birchbark began to settle under them. With one hand gripping the side, Thomas Jefferson Brown leaped over the sea. Lower and lower settled the canoe with almost a scream, Lord Meton cried above the wind:

"Good Lord, it won't hold us up!"

For a few moments Thomas Jefferson relieved the canoe of his weight, and the bark rose again, slowly. Then, with a gasp, he clutched at the side again, and into Lady Isobel's drenched face, half hid the wet veil of her shining hair.

"The canoe won't hold us all up," he said trying to smile. "But it will hold two—you two and the wind is taking it to the island, four miles to the island, and I may be make it."

He knew that he never could make it; no man could swim so far in the chill waters of Hudson Bay; but he spoke as if his words were "I'm going to let go and try. Isobel, my love, will you kiss me?"

She threw one arm about his neck. Meton, clutching with frantic terror to the canoe saw nothing of what happened, nor did he hear the sobbing cry of Lady Isobel's heart as she kissed Thomas Jefferson Brown, once, and then three times, before he dropped back into the sea again.

"Good-by, sweetheart!" he said.

In the eyes that looked up at her, in his eyes in the one last look of love that he said, "Good-by." Lady Isobel saw the truth, and stretched out her arm to him.

"Stop! Come back! Take me with you!" she cried. "I want to go with you!"

And there, in the wildness of that sea, four miles from shore, Thomas Jefferson Brown seemed to heave himself up out of the water, as if the strength of a thousand swimmers had suddenly come to him. He let out a cry of triumph, of love, of joy; and he came back and gripped the canoe again, his gray eyes flashing, his face glowing with a strange flush.

"You want to go with me?" he said. "Come!"

He held up his arms, and with a cry that wasn't fear Lady Isobel went into them, while Thomas Jefferson Brown called to Lord Meton:

"Stick to the canoe! It will take you to the island!"

IV

The shore was a low, dark streak, four miles away—an appalling distance away; but as she clung lightly to his shoulders, as Thomas Jefferson Brown told her to do, the horror and the fear of the big sea went out of Lady Isobel's brave little heart. She put her face down against his neck, pulled back his wet hair, and kissed him. God bless all such true hearts, wherever they be!

"We'll make it, Tom—we'll make it!" she told him a hundred times.

He felt the warm caresses of her lips, the thrilling love of her voice, and he knew that she was ready to die with him.

He swam in a strange way—a wonderfully strange way—did Thomas Jefferson Brown. He stood almost erect in the water, his head and shoulders clear; and now and then he stopped to rest, and it seemed no test for him at all to float with the weight of the woman he loved, his face turned up to her in those moments, her glorious blue eyes devouring him, her sweet lips kissing him—still kissing him.

He