They did not speak of ships. Through the wakeful night hours they watched for the lights of ships, but they did not speak of vigils. Their eyes were straining for uncharted shores during the days, but they did not speak of land; nor of rain, though they watched passionately the change and movement of wind and cloud. It is true that they suffered less in the days that followed the passing of Stackhouse. The underworld was gone from the seat in the stern; sunlight and sea air had cleansed it from the boat. They were weaker, but pangs of thirst were weaker, too. Small pieces of metal in their mouths kept the saliva trickling. The real difference was an exaltation which even Bellair shared at times, and which had come to them the fifth morning with Fleury’s talk, and with refining intensity since. The child was well; his imperative founts still flowing. She was pure mother; it was the child that was nourished first, not her own body. She was first in the passion for his preservation. Indeed, she would have told them at once had any change threatened him. But she was the soul of the fasting too; the austerity of it found deep sanction within her; and there were moments in which she bewildered Bellair, for she became bright with the vitality which is above the need of bread. Fleury talked of God, as Stackhouse had talked of death. Indeed, there was a contrasting intoxication in the days and nights of the preacher, but one without hideous reaction. “There comes a moment,” he said, “when I am alone--when you two are asleep--that I feel the weakness. I drink and eat--perhaps more than my share. But when we are all together--sitting here as now, talking and sustaining one another--oh, it seems I was never so happy.” Bellair suspected that this talk of lapses into abandonment while others slept was an effort to make their minds easy on the subject of his share. Both the Mother and Bellair doubted this; it preyed upon them. In the main they were one solution, each separate quality of their individualism cast into a common pool for the sustaining of a trinity. “It changes the whole order,” Fleury declared. “Why, whole crowds have died of hunger--in half the number of days that holy men and women have fasted as a mere incident of their practice toward self-mastery. This is our consecration.”