And she? Well, that is our story!
XLVI
That thick white bank of mist clung to them for the best part of a week. But, freed from all fear of treacherous assault, it troubled them little.
Once they had to go ashore for water, but got back safely by means of their guiding-line, and as they pushed through the fog they recalled that former time, when the mate's grim figure fashioned itself suddenly out of the clammy whiteness and brought them near to a disastrous end.
For the rest they had no scarcity. The fish bit as well in the fog as in the clear, and they had pork and flour for weeks to come.
In their narrow confinement to the ship, their intimacy and knowledge of one another grew with the days. She talked well, and he was an excellent listener, and led her on and on to tell him of the past and all that had interested her in it, and mused on all she said, and sought in it enlightenment as to her heart's freedom or otherwise.
Once, when she had been roving at length through her earlier days, she broke off suddenly with, "But, mon Dieu, I am doing all the talking! Now, tell me of yourself!"
"I have so little to tell compared with you. Shall I tell you of school-days—of college—of the hospitals—of my patients and their ailments?"
"Tell me why you left it all to seek the new life."
"For very much the same reason as you did, I imagine. I was living in a groove and I wanted something wider and larger."