t it be
later. But now there was that poor fellow-sufferer within reach,
and she could see him without fear. She went out quickly.

"Can you come away?"

"Quite safely for a minute. The others have done it before."

"Is there a chance?"

"There is a chance." Dr. Conrad's hand as she grasps it is so cold
that it makes her wonder at the warmth of her own. She is strangely
alive to little things. "Yes--there _is_ a chance," he repeats, more
emphatically, as one who has been contradicted. But the old Scotch
doctor had only said cautiously, "It would be airly times to be
geevin' up hopes," in answer to a half-suggestion of reference to him
in the words just spoken. Rosalind keeps the cold hand that has taken
hers, and the crushing weight of her own misery almost gives place to
her utter pity for the ash-white face before her, and the tale there
is in it of a soul in torture.

"What is the longest time ... the longest time...?" she cannot frame
her question, but both doctors take its meaning at once, repeating
together or between them, "The longest insensibility after immersion?
Many hours."

"But how many?" Six, certainly, is Dr. Conrad's testimony. But the
Scotchman's conscience plagues him; he must needs be truthful. "Vara
likely you're right," he says. "I couldna have borne testimony
pairsonally to more than two. But vara sairtainly you're more likely
to be right than I." His conscience has a chilling effect.

Fenwick, a haggard spectacle, has staggered to the door of the
cottage. He wants to get the attention of some one in the crowd that
stands about in silence, never intrusively near. It is the father of
young Benjamin, who comes being summoned.

"That man you told me about...." Fenwick begins.

"Peter Burtenshaw?"

"Ah! How long was he insensible?"

"Eight hours--rather better! We got him aboard just before eight bells
of the second dog-watch, and it was eight bells of the middle watch
afore he spoke. Safe and sure! Wasn't I on the morning-watch myself,
and beside him four hours of the night before, and turned in at eight
bells? He'll tell you the same tale himself. Peter Burtenshaw--he's
a stevedore now, at the new docks at Southampton." Much of this was
quite unintelligible--ship's time is always a problem--but it was
reassuring, and Rosalind felt grateful to the speaker, whether what he
said was true or not. In that curious frame of mind that observed the
smallest things, she was just aware of the di