I sat up on the cart, looked at my sleeping companions, and thought how unpleasant they looked. Semyonov like a dead man, Andrey Vassilievitch like a happy pig, Trenchard like a child who slept after a scolding. I felt intense loneliness. I wanted some one to comfort me, to reassure me against life which seemed to me suddenly now perilous and remorseless; moreover some one seemed to be reviewing my life for me and displaying it to me, laying bare all its uselessness and insignificance. "But I'm in no way a fine fellow," I could fancy myself crying. "I'm sleepy and cold and hungry. If you'll remove Andrey Vassilievitch's boots for me I'll lie flat on this wagon and you can let loose every shrapnel in the world over my head and I'll never stir. I thought I was interested in your war, and I'm not.... I thought no discomfort mattered to me, but I find that I dislike so much being cold and hungry that it outweighs all heroism, all sense of danger ... let me alone!" Then something occurred. Looking down over the side of the cart I saw, to my great surprise, Marie Ivanovna. "You!" I whispered. "Hush!" she answered. "Come down." I let myself down and at once she put her hand into mine. "Walk with me just a little way," she whispered, "to those trees and back." I had noticed at once that her voice trembled; now I perceived that her whole body was shaking; her hand gave little startled quivers under mine. "You're cold," I said. "No, I'm not cold," she answered still in a whisper, although we were now some way from the wagons. "I'm frightened, Mr. Durward, that's what's the matter--desperately frightened." "Nonsense," I answered her. "You! Frightened! Never!" "But I am. I've been terribly fr-frightened all night; and that Sister Anna Petrovna, he (she sometimes confused her pronouns) sleeps like a log. How can he? I've never slept, not for a moment, and I've been so cold and every time the cannon sounded I wanted to run away.... Oh, Mr. Durward, I'm so ashamed!" Then, suddenly, desperately clutching my hand: "Mr. Durward, you'll never tell any one, any one never.... Promise!" "Never a soul," I answered. "It's only because you're cold and hungry and sleepy that you think you're frightened. You're not frightened really. But wouldn't you like me to wake Trenchard and get him to come to you.... He'd be so happy?..." She started fiercely from me. "Never! Never! Why, what _can_ you think! You must never tell, most of all you must never tell him.... He must _never_ know--nothing--" The cannon began again. She caught my arm and stood with her body trembling, pressed against mine. I could feel her draw a deep breath. As I looked at her, her face white in the dawn, her large eyes staring like a child's, her body so young and slender, she seemed another creature, utterly, absolutely apart from the woman of this last fortnight.