Her hand lay on the rail beside mine, but so much smaller than mine that I almost laughed. She turned quickly with an answering smile, and impulsively I tried to cover her small hand with my larger one.
Deftly she moved her hand away. "Are you so silly?" she gravely asked.
At that moment I was quite too shy and awkward for my own peace of mind. She seemed suddenly to have stepped away from me as on seven-league boots. I certainly felt that she was angry with me, and I ventured no more familiarities; yet actually she merely moved her hand away and stayed where she was. There was that about her which made me feel like a child who is ashamed of being caught in some ridiculous game; and I think now that in some ways I was truly very much of a child.
For a long time we watched in silence the rolling seas, which had grown as black as jet save for the points of light that they reflected from the stars, and save for the broad bright path that led straight up to the full moon. But when the moon had risen higher and had cast its cold hard light on the deck of the brig, Cornelius Gleazen edged closer to us along the rail.
"Good-night," she murmured in a very low voice, and gave a little shudder, which, I divined, she intended that I should see. Then, with a quick, half-concealed smile, she left me.
All in all, I was happier that night than I had ever been before, I believe, for I thought that we had razed the wall of her reserve. But lo! in the morning it was there again, higher and more unyielding than ever; and more firmly than ever I was convinced that she had not told me all her story; that there was someone else of whom she was thinking, or that some other thing, of which I knew nothing, preyed upon her.