such a moment to confess her hopeless state seemed awful.

"Try," he said with a gasp.

"No," she answered, "I do not fear to die. Death cannot be worse than
life is for most of us. I have not prayed for years, not since--well,
never mind. I am not a coward. It would be cowardly to pray now because
I may be wrong. If there is a God who knows all, He will understand
that."

Geoffrey said no more, but laboured at the broken paddle gallantly and
with an ever-failing strength. The lightning had passed away and the
darkness was very great, for the hurrying clouds hid the starlight.
Presently a sound arose above the turmoil of the storm, a crashing
thunderous sound towards which the send of the sea gradually bore them.
The sound came from the waves that beat upon the Bryngelly reef.

"Where are we drifting to?" he cried.

"Into the breakers, where we shall be lost," she answered calmly. "Give
up paddling, it is of no use, and try to take off your coat. I have
loosened my skirt. Perhaps we can swim ashore."

He thought to himself that in the dark and breakers such an event was
not probable, but he said nothing, and addressed himself to the task
of getting rid of his coat and waistcoat--no easy one in that confined
space. Meanwhile the canoe was whirling round and round like a walnut
shell upon a flooded gutter. For some distance before the waves broke
upon the reef and rocks they swept in towards them with a steady
foamless swell. On reaching the shallows, however, they pushed their