The fringe of her eyelids trembled, and I marked a faint smile on her lips. "Dearest," cried I, "how is it with thee?" She returned no answer. I said "I shall be able to see the wound now, and perhaps check the bleeding. I can cut the dress clear of the shoulder and you need not stir." She exclaimed--but, my God, how feebly!--"Dearest, let me lie as I am," speaking with a sort of sigh between each word. And then she added, "Kiss me." I pressed my lips to hers; they were cold as the mist that was passing away in wreaths and clouds. I saw how it was and let her have her way. It would have been cruel to touch her with more than my lips. And even though I should have cut away her apparel to the wound and saw it, what could I do? Suppose the bleeding internal--the bullet lodged within, the lung touched, or some artery severed? A wild feeling seized me; I felt that I must leap upon a seat and rave out madly or my head would burst. The efforts to control myself left me trembling and weeping. I wiped from my brow the sweat that had leapt in drops there out of my weakness, and put my hand upon the oar afresh. The fog had settled away to leeward; it looked like a vast cliff of snow-covered ice, and the moonshine worked in it in shifting veins of delicate amber and dim steel-blue. Out of it, trending a little to the south of west, rolled the loom of the dusky land; it died out in the showering haze of the moonlight, whence ran the dark sea-line to right astern of us--nothing in sight but the land growing out of the fog. Over the horizon the stars hung like dew-drops, giving back the glory of the central luminary and set twinkling by the wind. They soared in sparkling dust, rich with large jewels, till they died out in the cold silvering of the sky round about the moon.