Her teeth were chattering from cold and nervous exhaustion.
"No, dear; not until death," he answered her pleading, but the kiss which he pressed on her mouth spoke in greater reassurance to her heart than his words. "Much has happened here—much that I don't understand; much that we may never understand. But just now we must think of ourselves. We must think of living; of fighting on. You're going to fight on with me, aren't you? You're going to be brave and never lose hope? You don't know how brave you've been. You have been the inspiration of the battle all along. Look up at me."
His powerful arms held her away as he spoke and she glanced up at him timidly.
"It is not hard to be brave with you," she said, and he drew her to him so fiercely that she could not help crying out.
He released her in alarm. His arms dropped to his sides.
"I'm a brute; I've hurt you, dear."
"No, no," she protested with a smile of love, but her eyes sought a red mark on her round, gleaming shoulder, and for the first time each of them became conscious of the meagerness of her attire.
"Did I bruise you that way?"
"No, no, Paul. It happened when you were dragging me over the side. The rope did it."
As she spoke she drew the yoke of her long white gown higher on her shoulders. Her cheeks mantled red with shame and he turned away from her. Yet in the next instant her cheeks crimsoned a deeper hue in shame of that shame, for it came to her as a truth that in the sight of this man there could be no abasement.