Although he denied to himself that he felt any jealousy, he had begun to believe that it was his duty to separate Conny and Lorna. He was not so lacking in humane instincts as to wish that Conny had lost his grip on the rope when he was overboard so that the difficulty would have been quite satisfactorily settled; and yet the thought flashed into his mind.
As Ralph conned the course of the plunging Fenique he likewise conned the problem of how to get rid of Conway Degger without inspiring in Lorna's breast a greater liking for the fellow than he believed she already sustained.
They raised the Lower Trillion life-saving station and drove on for the mouth of the harbor. A can buoy marked the channel and a deep-mouthed bell in a bracket on the end of the stone pier tolled intermittently. Ralph skilfully steered into the calm pool behind this breakwater.
"Some traveling," he observed, when he had shut off the engine and looked at his watch. "Forty-five minutes from the light. The old tub never made better time, even in a flat calm."
"Are we safe at last?" gasped Degger, sitting up.
"Just as safe as though you were at home and in bed," rejoined Ralph rather bruskly.
"What shall I do?" Lorna asked. "I look a fright."
"Why, Miss Lorna," Conny said, quickly regaining his spirits, "you'll have time enough to dry your things in the cabin. We'll be here for hours, I suppose."
"We may," Ralph said quickly. "But Lorna can go home by land. I'll find somebody with a flivver to take her up to Clay Head."
"Oh!" exclaimed Degger. "Then I guess I'll go with her."