Miss Otway slept on. I believe it might have been an hour and a half after I had awakened that, not knowing but that the poor young heart in her had been stopped by terror, or the delicate blood in her frozen, I stooped to view her face, the lamp burning dimly; she showed like a piece of exquisitely chiselled marble: I can't tell why, but her whiteness seemed to my mood to exactly fit the bitterness of this time, the frost, the snow, the ice, the wild gale and foaming waters; was I as mad then as I had felt some time before, to bend over her and get a fancy of her into my head as a spirit of these wild and desolate parts? Put yourself in my place and you'll not wonder to find your brow hot with fancies more desperately and tragically strange than such a crazy notion as this. She opened her eyes whilst I looked, and I stood erect with a sigh of relief, half turning to fling my cap down whilst I ran the length of my sleeve along my forehead for the refreshment of the wet of the snow. She sat up and watched me, whilst I saw in her face she was heeding the extravagant tumbling of the hull. 'It seems to be blowing a gale,' she said. 'Ay,' said I, 'but we're still alive. Feel these jumps: no empty cask could better them.' 'Will you remove these chairs that I may sit up?' I did so. Whilst I knelt beside her to cast the lashings adrift she eyed me intently, as though she would read my very brain; she then sighed, but said nothing, and the road being clear she drew her feet out of the covering and sought to rise, but, after a short struggle with the furious deck, sat again. I stood before the stove waiting for daybreak, my eye glancing from one frothing cabin window to another and thence to the skylight. At last she said: 'You've a brave heart, Mr. Selby, but it can hold out no longer; I read despair in your face. If the end is to come, may it come quickly. You have behaved to me with a noble kindness. I can but thank you--I can but thank you,' and she held out her hand with her eyes full of tears. I bowed my head over her hand; it was an excuse to fetch a breath or two, I would not just then trust myself to speak. Then said I: 'I'll not disguise the truth: our situation is perilous, as God, who, let us believe, is watching over us, knows. But I should be no true man to feel the despair you tell me you read in my face. Daylight may find us a sight to hearten us.' She shook her head. 'Well, but don't let your spirits die. If a wish could help us I'd be above, if _your_ safety was to be got at so small a cost. But see, now, I'll run up on deck and let you know if there's anything like the loom of ice about. It _may_ prove all right with us--it _may_ end in our lives being preserved.' But all the same, with a heart as heavy as ever hers could be, I clawed my way to the companion steps for yet another stare into the blackness.