As she spoke Mr. Owen came out of his cabin. His face was the pale shadow of the countenance he had brought on board. He blinked his eyes, and they were bloodshot; his very hair seemed to have been toned by emotion into a sort of ashen colour. He made a slight bow, and sat down at the table without speaking. Evidently he had breakfasted. Also, no doubt, he had previously met Mrs. Burke. I judged by his behaviour that the captain had talked to him; it was a mixture of sulkiness and dislike. He had been kind and attentive to me on many occasions during the voyage, and, full of fear and other crowding passions as I myself was, I yet felt sorry for him. I bade him good morning and asked him if he had been on deck. On this he rose, and clawing his way round the table, so as to get near to me, he said:-- 'I owe you an apology for my conduct last night. My indiscretion was not so much the result of cowardice as the state of my health. Much less than I took in the hope of obtaining a little warmth and spirit must have overcome me. I trust I have your forgiveness.' 'There is nothing to forgive, Mr. Owen, nor is this a time to talk of such things.' 'The captain was scarcely manly in his language,' said he, turning to Mrs. Burke. 'I am not an officer of the ship nor one of his crew. I am practically a passenger, and claim the privileges of a passenger.' 'Passengers are not allowed to take too much. All captains object to drinking in their ships, particularly in such dreadful times of excitement as last night,' said Mrs. Burke. I lifted my finger to call attention to the cries of men and the tread of heavily shod feet overhead. Mr. Owen returned to his seat at the table. Soon after this the skylight that was thick with frozen snow whitened as to a watery beam of sunshine, or to some transient glance of clearer day in the sky. I asked Mrs. Burke to take me on deck. She seemed to shrink. I asked her if she had been on deck. 'Yes,' she answered. 'Then why should not I go?' 'Feel how dangerously the hull rolls,' said she. 'You might be thrown and break your neck.' But I saw that her real objection did not lie so much in that as in her fear of the effect of the scene of the wreck upon me. Thus reading her mind, I exclaimed: 'I will go alone; but why will you not come?' and went to my cabin for more wraps. She was ready before I was, and we clasped hands, and holding on carefully likewise, stopping always for that sudden recovery of the deck which would happen out of its slant with the rush of a cannon ball slung by a line and let go at an angle, so ungovernable were the motions of the dismasted hull, we gained the companion ladder, and crawled to the head of the steps, where we stood in the companion itself, with our heads above the hood.