Midnight came, and no boats. There was a pitifully frequent opening of cottage doors, and the sudden flashes of fire and candle light that followed revealed always some white, fearful face thrust out into the black night, in the hope of hearing the shouts of the home-coming men. Joan could not keep away from the door; and the yawning of Denas, her shifting movements, her uncontrolled sleepiness, irritated Joan. In great anxiety, companionship not perfectly sympathetic is irritating; mere mortals quiver under its infliction. For Denas could not perceive any special reason for unusual fear; she longed to go to bed and sleep, as she had done many a time before under the same circumstances. She laid the Bible on the table before Joan and said: "Won't you read a psalm and lie down a bit, mother?" "No. Read for yourself, and to bed then if you want to go." Denas opened the book. Her father's mark was in the psalms, and she began to read to herself. Joan's face was beneath her blue apron. David's words did not interpret her at this hour; only her own lips could speak for her own sorrow and fear. There was a deep stillness in the house. Outside the tempest raged wildly. It seemed to Joan as if hours passed in that interval of heart-trembling; she was almost shocked when the old clock gave its long whirring warning and then struck only _one_. Her first look was to the fire. It wanted replenishing. Her next was at Denas. The girl was fast asleep. Her hands were across the open Bible, her face was dropped upon them. Joan touched her and said not unkindly: "A little bit of Bible-reading do send people to sleep quick, don't it, Denas?" "I was so tired, mother." "Aw, my dear, you be no worse than Christian in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He did go to sleep, too, when he was reading his roll. Come, my girl, it is your time for bed. Sitting up won't help you to bear trouble." "Mother, won't it be time enough to bear trouble when it is really here to be borne?" "It do seem as if it would. Love be a fearful looker-forward. Go to bed, my girl; maybe you will sleep sorrow away." So Denas went to bed and did not awake until the grey light of the stormy morning was over everything. She could hear the murmur of voices in the living-room, and she dressed quickly and went there. John Penelles sat by the fire drinking hot tea. His hair had yet bits of ice in it, his face still had the awful shadow that is cast by the passing-by of death. Denas put her arms around his neck and kissed him; she kissed him until she began to sob, and he drew her upon his knee, and held her to his breast, and said in a whisper to her: "Ten men drowned, my dear, and three frozen to death; but through God's mercy father slipped away from an ugly fate." "Oh, father, how could you bear it?" "God help us, Denas, we must bear what is sent." "What a night it has been! How did you live through it?"