Desperately, as one half-ashamed, she answered him. "I wish with all my heart I could think so. But—I am still asking myself if—if there is no way of escape."
He turned his head in the dim light and looked at her, and shame stabbed her deeper still. Yet she would not recall the words. It was better that he should know, better that he should not deem her any greater or worthier than she was.
Then, "Thank you for telling me," he said very simply. "But you'll win out all the same. I have always known that you were on the winning side."
The words touched her in a fashion not wholly accountable. Her eyes filled with sudden tears.
"What makes you have such faith in me?" she said.
The light was too dim for her so see his face, but she knew that he was smiling as he made reply.
"That's just one of the things I can't explain," he said. "But I think
God made you for a spar for drowning men to cling to."
She smiled with him in spite of the tears. "May the spar never fail you!" she said.
"I am not afraid," he answered very steadily.