Bellair regarded him, between his own wordless vapourings of consciousness. The preacher was like a guest, not of earth altogether--like one who would come in the evening.... Yes, that was it. He was like the old man who came to Olga, only young and beautiful. It did not occur to Bellair now that he was regarding his friend with a quality of vision that a well-fed man never knows.... That which he had fancied placid and boyish was knit and masterful. The cheeks and temples were hollowed, but the eyes were bright. There is a brightness of hunger, of fever, of certain drugs, but these were as different as separate colours--and had not to do with this man’s eyes. Nothing that Bellair knew but starlight could be likened--and not all starlight. There was one star that rose late and climbed high above and a little toward the north--solitary, remote, not yellow nor red nor green nor white, as we know it--yet of that whiteness which is the source of all. Bellair had forgotten the name, but Fleury’s eyes made him think of it. ... The woman’s head was lying back. Something that Bellair had noted a hundred times, without bringing it actually into his mind’s front, now appeared with all the energy of a realisation. Her throat was almost too beautiful. The diverging lines under the ear, one stretching down to the shoulder, the other curving forward around the chin, were shadowed a little deeper from her body’s wasting, but the beauty was deeper than flesh, the structure itself classic. It was the same as when he had noted her finger-nails. Beauty had brought him a kind of excitement, and something of hostility--as if he had been hurt terribly by it long ago. But this was different; these details had come one by one, as he was ready. Her integrity had entered his heart before each outer symbol. He had not seen her at all at first; recalled the queer sense of hesitation in raising his eyes across the table in the cabin of the _Jade_. He had studied her face in the open boat, but something seemed to blur his eyes when she turned to him to speak. Two are required for a real understanding. As yet they had not really met, not yet turned to each other in that searching silence which fathoms. But the details were dawning upon him. Perhaps that was the way of the Faraway Woman--to dawn upon one. * * * * * The day was ending--their shadows long upon the water. Fleury raised his hand as he said: “It is surer to me than anything in the world----” “What, Fleury?” Bellair asked, though there was but one theme of the day. “That this is our last day in the open boat.” Bellair did not answer. His own voice had a hideous sound to him and betrayed his misery. “It was the _too-great light_--that I saw,” the preacher added huskily. “It began last night as I prayed. I saw that this was the last day for us--but more----” “I saw something about you as you prayed,” the woman said.