“At that rate, people might be discouraged before they got what they wanted,” she observed, when the silence had lasted some little time.

“They might,” said Winthrop quietly.

“I should think many might.”

“Many have been,” he answered.

“What then?” she asked a little abruptly.

“They did not get what they wanted.”

Elizabeth started a little, and shivered, and tears began to come again.

“What’s to hinder their being discouraged, Mr. Landholm?” she asked in a tone that was a little querulous.

“Believing God’s word.”

So sweet the words came, her tears ceased at that; the power of the truth sank for a moment with calming effect upon her rebellious feeling; but with this came also as truly the thought, “You have a marvellous beautiful way of saying things quietly!” —­ However for the time her objections were silenced; and she sat still, looking out upon the water, and thinking that with the first quiet opportunity she would begin the first chapter of Matthew.

For a little while they both were motionless and silent; and then rising, Winthrop began his walk up and down the deck again.  Elizabeth was left to her meditations; which sometimes roved hither and thither, and sometimes concentred themselves upon the beat of his feet, which indeed formed a sort of background of cadence to them all.  It was such a soothing reminder of one strong and sure stay that she might for the present lean upon; and the knowledge that she might soon lose it, made the reminder only the more precious.  She was weeping most bitter tears during some of that time; but those footsteps behind her were like quiet music through all.  She listened to them sometimes, and felt them always, with a secret gratification of knowing they would not quit the deck till she did.  Then she had some qualms about his getting tired; and then she said to herself that she could not put a stop to what was so much to her and which she was not to have again.  So she sat and listened to them, weary and half bewildered with the changes and pain of the last few days and hours; hardly recognizing the reality of her own situation, or that the sloop, Winthrop’s walk behind her, the moonlight, her lonely seat on the deck, and her truly lonely place in the world, were not all parts of a curious phantasm.  Or if realizing them, with senses so tried and blunted with recent wear and tear, that they refused to act and left her to realize it quietly and almost it seemed stupidly.  She called it so to herself, but she could not help it; and she was in a manner thankful for that.  She would wake up again.  She would have liked to sit there all night under that moonlight and with the regular fall of Winthrop’s step to and fro on the vessel.

“How long can you stand this?” said he, pausing beside her.

“What?” said Elizabeth looking up.

“How long can you do without resting?”