The softly ruffled Adriatic tossed no foam.
'One night ?' said Nevil; 'one?
Why only one ?' Renee shuddered.

'Oh! do not speak.' 'Then, give me your hand.' 'There, my friend.' He pressed a hand that was like a quivering chord.

She gave it as though it had been his own to claim.

But that it meant no more than a hand he knew by the very frankness of her compliance, in the manner natural to her; and this was the charm, it filled him with her peculiar image and spirit, and while he held it he was subdued.
Lying on the deck at midnight, wrapt in his cloak and a coil of rope for a pillow, considerably apart from jesting Roland, the recollection of that little sanguine spot of time when Renee's life-blood ran with his, began to heave under him like a swelling sea.

For Nevil the starred black night was Renee.