"I went in search of you, and one of the men told me he had seen you walking down the beach, as though attracted by the light which he believed was a lantern carried by a wrecker, perhaps the feared Jim Dilks. I engaged him to accompany me, and securing a lantern we hurried along. And Darry, we found you just in time, for the sea was carrying you out. I believe that wretch must have cast you into the water just as he did the body of the passenger."
"Then I owe my life to you—Cousin Paul?"
"If so it only squares accounts, for I guess I'd have gone under out there on the sound only for your coming in time. But Darry, do you think you feel strong enough to see your mother? I forced her to lie down in the little room beyond, but she cannot sleep from the excitement."
"Yes, oh! yes. Please bring her. I shall be a long time understanding it all, and trying to realize that I am truly awake. To think that I really have a mother!"
Darry drew a long breath, and followed Paul with eager eyes as he went through the doorway into the other room.
It was dawn now.
In more senses than one the day had come to Darry.
He heard low voices, and then someone came through the door, someone whose eyes were fastened hungrily upon his face.
Darry struggled to sit up, and was just in time to feel a pair of arms around his neck and have his poor aching head drawn lovingly upon the bosom of the mother whom he had not known since infancy.