Then that reference to their wanderings in the northern seas--he did not know how she trembled as he spoke. She could never even think of that strange time she had spent up there, and of the terrible things that had come of it, without a shudder. If she could have cut it out of her life and memory altogether, that would have been well; but how could she forget the agony of that awful farewell; the sense of utter loneliness with which she saw the shores recede; the conviction then borne in upon her--and never wholly eradicated from her mind--that some mysterious doom had overtaken her, from which there was no escape. The influence of that time, and of the time that succeeded it, still dwelt upon her, and overshadowed her with its gloom. She had almost lost the instinct of hope. She never doubted, when they carried young Dowse into that silent room, but that he would die: was it not her province to bring misery to all who were associated with her? And she had got so reconciled to this notion that she did not argue the matter with herself; she had, for example, no sense of bitterness in contrasting this apparent "destiny" of hers with the most deeply-rooted feeling in her heart; namely, a perfectly honest readiness to give up her own life if only that could secure the happiness of those she loved. She did not even feel injured because this was impossible. Things were so; and she accepted them. But sometimes, in the darkness of her room, in the silence of the night-time, when her heart seemed to be literally breaking with its conflict of anxious love and returning despair, some wild notion of propitiation--doubtless derived from ancient legends--would flash across her mind; and she would cry in her agony, "If one must be taken, let it be me! The world cares for him. What am I?" If she could only go out into the open place of the city, and bare her bosom to the knife of the priest, and call on the people to see how she had saved the life of her beloved--surely that would be to die happy. What she had done, now that she came to look back over it, seemed but too poor an expression of her great love and admiration. What mattered it that a girl should give up her friends and her home? Her life--her very life--that was what she desired, when these wild fancies possessed her, to surrender freely, if only she could know that she was rescuing him from the awful portals that her despairing dread saw open before him, and was giving him back--as she bade him a last farewell--to health, and joy, and the comfort of many friends.