"But my heart yearned to her," he said, "more than ever it did over any
bird fallen from its nest, or any lamb that had slipped down the cliffs.
All the softness and all the helplessness of every poor little creature
I had ever seen in my life seemed about her; all the hunted creatures
and all the trapped creatures came to my mind. I can hardly tell you
about it, doctor. I could have risked my life a hundred times over for
her. It was a rough night, and I kept seeing her pale, hunted-looking
face before me, though there was not half the danger I've often been in
round our islands. I couldn't keep myself from fancying we were all
going down to the bottom of the sea, and that poor young thing, running
away from one trouble, was going to meet a worse--if it is worse to die
than to live in great trouble. Dr. Martin, they tell me all the bed of
the sea out yonder under the Atlantic is a smooth, smooth floor, with no
currents, or tides, or streams, but a great calm; and there is no life
down there of any kind. Well, that night I seemed to see the dead who
have perished by sea lying there calm and quiet with their hands folded
across their breasts. A great company it was, and a great graveyard,
strewed over with sleeping shapes, all at rest and quiet, waiting till
they hear the trumpet of the archangel sounding so that even the dead
will hear and live again. It was a solemn sight to see, doctor. Somehow
I came to think it would not be altogether a bad thing for the poor
young troubled creature to go down there among them and be at rest.
There are some people who seem too tender and delicate for this world.
Yet if there had come a chance I'd have laid down my life for hers, even
then, when I knew nothing much about her."

"Tardif," I said, "I did not know what a good fellow you are, though I
ought to have known it by this time."