Suddenly she was seized with a fit of calm, desperate courage. Gliding from her shadow, she walked boldly out into the moonlight. Her heart was racing madly; her knees trembled. She could scarcely walk, yet walk she did, with a steady determined tread. Past this ice-pile, round this row of up-ended cakes, across this broad, open spot she moved. No one sprang out to intercept her progress. Here and there a dark head appeared for an instant, only immediately to disappear.
“Cowards!” she told herself. “All cowards. Afraid.”
Now she was approaching the sandy beach. Unable longer to restrain her impulses, she broke into a wild run.
She arrived at the side of the O Moo entirely out of breath. Leaning against its side for a moment, she turned to look back. There was not a person in sight. The beach, the ice, the black lines of breakwaters seemed as silent and forsaken as the heart of a desert.
“And yet it is swarming with men,” she breathed. “I wonder what they wanted?”
Suddenly she started. A figure had come into sight round the nearest prow. For an instant her hand gripped a round of the ladder, a preparatory move for upward flight. Then her hand relaxed.
“Oh!” she breathed, “It’s you!”
“Yes, it is I, Mark Pence,” said a friendly boyish voice.
“I—I suppose I should be afraid of you,” said Lucile, “but I’m not.”
“Why? Why should you?” he asked with a smile.