The dawn was in the sky by this time, and as it broadened they could see faint specks here and there, where others, like themselves, clung to drifting spars. Mrs. Lawrie shuddered with cold and the reaction from an excitement which had been far more powerful than she knew at the time. Her preserver then took off his coat, wrapped it around her, and produced a pocket-flask, saying; “this will support us the longest; it is all I could find, or bring with me.” She sat, leaning against his shoulder, though partly turned away from him: all she could say was: “you are very good.” After awhile he spoke, and his voice seemed changed to her ears. “You must be thinking of Mr. Lawrie. It will, indeed, be terrible for him to hear of the disaster, before knowing that you are saved.” “God has spared him that distress,” she answered. “Mr. Lawrie died, a year ago.” She felt a start in the strong frame upon which she leaned. After a few minutes of silence, he slowly shifted his position towards her, yet still without facing her, and said, almost in a whisper: “You have said that I am very good. Will you put your hand in mine?” She stretched hers eagerly and gratefully towards him. What had happened? Through all the numbness of her blood, there sprang a strange new warmth from his strong palm, and a pulse, which she had almost forgotten as a dream of the past, began to beat through her frame. She turned around all a-tremble, and saw his face in the glow of the coming day. “Leonard Clare!” she cried. “Then you have not forgotten me?” “Could one forget, when the other remembers?” The words came involuntarily from her lips. She felt what they implied, the moment afterwards, and said no more. But he kept her hand in his.