"No, no, dear, put that thought away from you forever. He was gone beyond human aid or recall before you got below. I remember your going away from the wheel to do something. You had hardly closed the lounge door when——Let us not think of it."
"He was——" Emily interrupted.
"Let us shut out every thought of those two nights, dear, as long as we can. Shut it out with the past. Soon enough black nights like that will come between us. Won't you try?"
As Paul spoke he took one of her gloved hands and patted it. There was an appeal in his gaze: a flash of the old pain which she had been praying she might never see in those gray eyes again.
"We will not think of it, my 'prince,'" she answered.
With a quick smile he turned away and went forward. She watched him until he disappeared through the door of the sail room in the port side of the forward house.
In less than two hours there was a sudden cessation of the black streams from below and a weird moaning of the pumps where their plungers pounded emptily.
"Paul! Paul!"
The gold woman sent this cry forward, and as she did so she cut off the steam as she had seen Paul do. She thrilled at the sight of the engine stopping at the touch of her small hand. She was laughing as he came to the engine room door and saw what she had done.
"The pumps——There is no more water!" she cried eagerly.