“I’m going to stay.”
“You can’t, Betty. I order you to go in.”
“I won’t go.”
“Betty,” he cried in despair, “it will be better for me if you’re out of the way. Don’t you see?”
“No-o, I don’t.”
“You’ll be safer.”
“You know I won’t. You’re only trying to make me comfortable, while you are left out here in the cold and wet. Let me stay. If—if we must be drowned, I want to be near you, Bob White—please.”
There was no resisting this appeal. A thrill of pity went through him as he looked down at the slight form crouching under the all-too-low gunwale. She should not die if he could prevent it.
“Can you see the compass?” he asked. “How are we heading?”
She rubbed a little of the brine from the binnacle-glass. “Yes; now I see it. North is where that mark is, isn’t it? Oh, I know—southwest by south.”