I saw that he was rowing in his shirt sleeves,--his coat was over me,--and his hat was gone; the rain was pouring down on his bare head. His face was very pale and set,--stern looking,--and the veins in his forehead were standing out like cords as he strained every nerve at the oars.
"I'm going for one of the coves," he shouted to me presently, "where I can run her aground."
Again and again we were tossed back by the receding waves; but at last we shot into the cove, and I heard the keel grating on the rocky beach. In an instant Hilliard was overboard, and had pulled the boat up on the sand, out of reach of the highest wave. As he helped me on to the beach, I looked up in his white face, and such a sense of what he had endured for me rushed over me that I couldn't get the words out fast enough.
I threw my hands out and caught hold of his shoulders: "Oh, Hilliard Erveng, you _are_ a brave boy!" I cried out, choking up. "You are no coward; you are brave--_brave!_ and I have been a mean, contemptible, conceited, stuck-up girl." I think I shook him a little; I was in such earnest that I hardly knew what I was doing.
The rain had plastered Hilliard's hair flat to his head, and washed it into funny little points on his forehead, and there were raindrops pouring down his face; but his mouth was smiling, and his eyes were wide open and shining. He laid his hands over mine as they rested on his shoulders. "Thank God for to-day, Betty, _thank_ God!" he said, in a glad, excited way. "He has saved your life, and I am no longer a coward; I am no longer afraid--see!" As the lightning flashed over us he lifted his head and faced it, with lips that quivered a little, but also with unflinching eyes. "Doctor Emmons always said that I would be cured of my dread could I but face one thunder storm throughout," he added, still with that joyous ring in his voice. "And now I've done it! I've done it; I am _free!_"
"Oh! I am so _glad!_ so _very_ thankful!" I began, and then broke down and burst into a violent fit of crying.
I couldn't stop crying, though I _did_ try hard to control my tears; and my knees shook so that I could hardly walk. Hilliard almost carried me along until we met Jim the coachman and Mr. Erveng on the beach. Mr. Erveng had just got home, and heard that Hilliard and I were out in the storm. Then between them they got me to the house, where Mrs. Erveng and Alice and her mother were anxiously waiting for us.