“Now—” Her grave look went as far as that of the blind who seem to descry Truth riding on the viewless air, or sitting on the round world’s uttermost rim. Certainly Hildegarde had been given such extension of vision in these hours that plainly enough she saw that it was not till a cloud settled on Cheviot’s fame that she knew how much its fairness meant to her. Acceptance of that had brought her acquainted with yet another new aspect of experience. Here was a man that had everybody and everything to recommend him—_up to yesterday_. Since yesterday she knew not only that his nature and his outlook were on one side defective, she had glimpses of a faith that, precisely because of this, he had a need of her beyond the one he had been used to urge. A light shone in the thought that there was something she could do for him that perhaps no other creature could. A perception this of infinite significance to such as Hildegarde Mar, belonging as she did to the bigger of the two camps into which womankind are naturally divided. For, _pace_ the satirists, those of her sex who make most stir in the world and cause most commotion in the hearts of men—those daughters of the horse leech, whose unappeased hunger cries ever “More, more! Give! and give again!” they are in the minority. To the larger, if less striking army, those whose primal passion is to give—of them was Hildegarde. “It looks as if—for all Louis is so wonderfully clear-headed and I’m so—the other way, there are some things I can see plainer than he. But it seems to me that’s only a reason for”—her voice dropped a little—“for—” “Yes,” said Mrs. Locke. Hildegarde flushed faintly. “For trying, I don’t mean by preaching, but trying to help him to see—well, some of the things you’ve given me an inkling of.” She laid her hand gently on the older woman’s. Mrs. Locke’s fingers closed round the girl’s, but she said nothing. “So, though he nearly broke your arm, you will have done him a service.” The white face smiled its enigmatic little smile. But presently, “I’m glad I know you,” she said. “Are you? Then let’s be friends!” As though some tangible barrier had been beaten down they went nearer the two men. The captain was ending, “—and if the ice closes in behind us we’ll be trapped.” “Oh, is that all!” said Cheviot, glancing toward Hildegarde. “No, it isn’t all. We’d be carried wherever the floe goes—and that’s not Nome.” Gillies lowered the glass, and his strained-looking eyes fell on the two he had forgotten. “Sorry, ladies, you must go below.” Not only rather snubbed, but feeling now the gravity of affairs, Hildegarde and her companion departed with some precipitation, while the captain’s hoarse shout rang out in an indistinguishable order to some invisible officer.