"There is something I can do for her?"
"I think—think not." There was a note of hesitancy in her voice and Lavelle caught it.
"Is there nothing you can do, Miss Granville?"
"She is burning with a terrible fever."
"Water? Is that it?" he whispered very low.
"Yes, but she told me I was not to ask. She is very—plucky."
"And you were afraid to come to me? Afraid I would refuse?"
"Yes," she answered slowly. "But I am here and—and I did not ask. I don't know why I came."
Without another word Lavelle flashed the torch on a breaker at his feet. At a nod of his head she slipped down from the seat to the bottom of the boat. He handed her a tin cup from the air-tank locker. Somebody stirred forward and he snapped out the light until they were still. The spirit of conspiracy made her crouch lower. She hardly breathed until he turned on the light again.
The torch made her glorious head glow vividly. It transformed the thick braids falling over her shoulders and across her bosom into bands of filagreed gold. A mist of pity swept his vision.