It seems like heaven. My dear, I'm
water-logged, yet the mere absence of that frightful agony makes my
present state sheerest bliss."
She tried to gasp a reply, but could not.
"I'm all right," he assured her. "Let us float and rest up.
Stretch out, yourself, and get your wind back."
And for half an hour, side by side, on their backs, they floated in
the fairly placid Kanaka Surf. Ida Barton was the first to
announce recovery by speaking first.
"And how do you feel now, man of mine?" she asked.
"I feel as if I'd been run over by a steam-roller," he replied.
"And you, poor darling?"
"I feel I'm the happiest woman in the world. I'm so happy I could
almost cry, but I'm too happy even for that. You had me horribly
frightened for a time. I thought I was to lose you."
Lee Barton's heart pounded up. Never a mention of losing herself.
This, then, was love, and all real love, proved true--the great
love that forgot self in the loved one.
"And I'm the proudest man in the world," he told her; "because my
wife is the bravest woman in the world.
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