Bivens stopped short, tore himself from Stuart's grip and kicked his shins like a vicious, enraged schoolboy.

"I'll see you to the bottomless pit before I'll move another inch!" he yelled savagely. "Go to the devil and let me alone. I'll take care of myself, if you'll attend to your own business."

Stuart folded his arms and looked at him a moment, debating the question as to whether he would wring his neck or just leave him to freeze.

Bivens rushed up to the lawyer and tried to shake his half-frozen fist in his face.

"I want you to understand, that I've taken all I'm going to from you to-day, Jim Stuart!" he fairly screamed. "Put your hand on me again and I'll kill you if I can get hold of one of these guns. I want you to remember that I'm the master of millions."

"Yesterday in New York," Stuart answered with contempt, "you were the master of millions. Here to-night, on this marsh, in this desert of freezing waters, you're an insect, you're a microbe!"

"I'm man enough to take no more orders from a one-horse lawyer," Bivens answered, savagely.

"All right, to hell with you!" Stuart said, contemptuously, as he turned and left him.

He began to walk briskly along the marsh to keep warm.

Nan was playing the soft strains of an old-fashioned song. He stopped and listened a moment in awe at the strange effects. The sob and moan of the wind through the yacht's shrouds and halyards came like the throb of a hidden orchestra, accompanying the singer in the cabin. The old song stirred his soul. The woman who was singing it was his by every law of nature. The little shrivelled, whining fool, who would die if he left him there, had taken her from him; not by the power of manhood, but by the lure of gold that he had taken from the men who had earned it.

All he had to do to-night was to apply the law of self-interest by which this man had lived and waxed mighty, and to-morrow he could take the woman be loved in his arms, move into his palace its master and hers. There could be no mistake about Nan's feelings. He had read the yearning of her heart with unerring insight. Visions of a life of splendour, beauty and power with her by his side swept his imagination.

A sense of fierce, exultant triumph filled his soul. But most alluring of all whispered joys was the dream of their love-life. The years of suffering and denial, of grief and pain, of bitterness and disappointment would make its final realization all the more wonderful.

She was just reaching the maturity of womanhood, barely thirty-one, and had yet to know the meaning of love's real glory.

"She's mine and I'll take her!" he cried at last. "Let the little, scheming, oily, cunning scoundrel die to-night by his own law of self-interest--I've done my part."

Again the music swept over the white foaming waters. His heart was suddenly flooded with memories of his boyhood, its dreams of heroic deeds; his mother's serene face; his father's high sense of honour; and the traditions of his boyhood that make character noble and worth while, traditions that created a race of free-men before a dollar became the measure of American manhood.

"Have I done my part?" he asked himself, with a sudden start. "If he has his way he will die. Peevish, fretful, spoiled by the flattery of fools, he is incapable of taking care of himself under the conditions in which he finds himself. If I consent to his death am I not guilty of murder? Out of the heart are the issues of life! Have I the right to apply his own law? Could I save him in spite of himself if I made up my mind to do it? Pride and ceremony, high words and courtesy cut no figure in this crucial question. Could I save him if I would? If I can, and don't, I'm a murderer."

He turned quickly and retraced his steps. Bivens was crouching on his knees with his back to the fierce, icy wind, feebly striking his hands together.

"Are you going to fight your way with me back to that yacht, Cal?" he asked sternly.

"I am not," was the short answer. "I am going to walk the marsh till four o'clock."

"You haven't the strength. You can't walk fast enough to keep from freezing. You'll have to keep it up eight hours. You're cold and wet and exhausted. It's certain death if you stay. That water is rising fast. In ten minutes more it will be dangerous to try it. Will you come with me?"

"I've told you I'll take my chances here and I want you----"

He never finished the sentence, Stuart suddenly gripped his throat, threw him flat on his back, and while he kicked and squirmed and swore, drew a cord from his pocket and tied his hands and feet securely.

Paying no further attention to his groans and curses, he threw his little, helpless form across his shoulders, plunged into the water and began his struggle to reach the yacht. It was a difficult and dangerous task. The weight of Bivens's inert form drove his boots deep into the mud, and the wind's gusts of increasing fury threatened at almost every step to hurl them down. Again and again the waves broke on his face and submerged them both. Bivens had ceased to move or make a sound. Stuart couldn't tell whether he had been strangled by the freezing water or choked into silence by his helpless rage.

At last he struggled up the gangway, tore the cabin door open, staggered down the steps into the warm, bright saloon, and fell in a faint at Nan's feet.

The doctor came in answer to her scream and lifted Bivens to his stateroom, while Nan bent low over the prostrate form, holding his hand to her breast in a close, agonising clasp, while she whispered:

"Jim, speak to me! You can't die yet, we haven't lived!"

He sighed and gasped:

"Is he alive?"

"Yes, in his stateroom there, cursing you with every breath."

The young lawyer closed his eyes, blinded with tears, murmuring over and over again:

"Thank God!--Thank God!"

CHAPTER IV

THE MOCKERY OF THE SUN

Stuart refused to talk to Nan, went abruptly to his stateroom, and spent a night of feverish dreams. His exhaustion was so acute, restful sleep was impossible. Through the night his mind went over and over the horror of the moment on that marsh when he had looked into the depths of his own soul and seen the flames of hell.

Between the times of dozing unconsciousness, which came at intervals, he wondered what had become of the two men in that disabled tender. He waited with dread the revelation the dawn would bring. He rose with the sun and looked out of his stateroom window. The bay was a solid sheet of glistening ice. The sun was shining from a cloudless sky and the great white field sparkled and flashed like a sea of diamonds.

What a mockery that sunshine! Somewhere out on one of those lonely marshes it was shining perhaps on the stark bodies of the two men who were eating and drinking and laughing the day before. What did Nature care for man's joys or sorrows, hopes or fears? Beneath that treacherous ice the tide was ebbing and flowing to the throb of her even, pulsing heart. To-morrow the south wind would come and sweep it all into the sea again.

He wondered dimly if the God, from whose hands this planet and all the shining worlds in space had fallen, knew or cared? And then a flood of gratitude filled his soul at the thought of his deliverance from the shadow of crime. Instinctively his eyes closed and his lips moved in prayer:

"Thank God, for the sunlight that shines in my soul this morning and for the life that is still clean; help me to keep it so!"

Nothing now could disturb the serenity of his temper. He dressed hurriedly, went into the galley, made a fire and called Nan.

He rapped gently on the panelled partition which separated their staterooms. He could hear her low, softly spoken answer as if there were nothing between them.

"Yes, Jim, what is it? Are you ill?"

"No, hungry. You will have to help me get some breakfast."

"The cook hasn't come?" she asked in surprise.

There was a moment's hesitation and his voice sounded queer when he quietly answered:

"No."

She felt the shock of the thought back of his answer and he heard her spring out of bed and begin to dress hurriedly.

In ten minutes she appeared at the door of the galley, her hair hanging in glorious confusion about her face and the dark eyes sparkling with excitement.

"What on earth does it mean, Jim?" she asked breathlessly. "Cal could tell me nothing last night except that he had gotten wet and chilled and you had carried him on board against his protest. When the doctor put him to sleep with a lot of whiskey he was muttering incoherently about a quarrel he had with you. I thought you sent both tenders to the shore for mail and provisions. Why hasn't the cook returned?"

"He may never come, Nan."