Miss Temple stood in no need now of Captain Braine’s overcoat. She was habited in the costume of the _Countess Ida_; somewhat soiled it was, yet the perfect fit of it continued to atone for its shipwrecked airs. Her dark eyes glowed under the shadow of the straw hat she had had on when she left the Indiaman. She needed but her jewelry, the flash and decoration of her trinkets, to show very nearly as finely as she had on that day. There was but little alteration visible in her. For my part I could detect no more than that her face was a trifle thinner than when we had first entered on this wild adventure. The eye of close and constant association would not indeed witness changes which might instantly be perceptible to one encountered after an absence. Still, I had the image of her brilliant on my mind as she was on board the Indiaman, and viewing her now, as I say, I could perceive no other change than what I have mentioned. Intellectually, however, there was an alteration, defined to a degree to my sight. Her gaze was softened, and was often sweet. The characteristic firmness of her lips had lost its air of haughtiness. There was no longer any manner of command in her looks, nor of exaction in her fixed regard; there was nothing to hint that her spirit was broken—merely that it had been bowed to an average human level by the rough usage of the sea, and by the amazing experiences with which her months of lonely association with me had been surcharged. Heretofore, that is to say for some weeks past, she had exhibited a resigned, calm, resolved behaviour, as of one who was constantly schooling herself to prepare for an issue of life or death. She had long ceased to utter a complaint; she would even detect a sigh in herself with a glance of contrition and self-reproach. Again and again had I complimented her upon the heroic qualities which her sufferings of mind and body had fructified in her; but this afternoon she was feverishly impatient and restless. The old fires of her spirit when alarmed were in her eyes. I would observe her struggling in vain to appear composed. As we sat together, she exclaimed, as she brought her eyes to my face from a nervous sweeping gaze at the horizon over the bows: ‘By this time to-morrow we shall know our fate.’ ‘Perhaps not. Yet I pray it may be so. If I were sentenced to be hanged, I would wish the hour come. But what is to be our fate? Nothing in this life is so bad or so good as our fears or our hopes would have us think. If there should be no island—— Well, those villains will find me on the alert for what may come along in the shape of chance, and you must be ready.’ ‘I am ready,’ she exclaimed; ‘only tell me what to do. But this expectation——’ Her lips trembled, and her white fingers clenched to the agitation that possessed her. ‘The misery is, Mr. Dugdale, you have no scheme.’