Had he been alone he would have shared to the full
the awful, exasperating feeling of being trapped, of there being nothing
to be done, which possessed all the thinking minds about him. But he was
not alone----

Nan, lying on his breast, seemed to pour virtue into him--to make him
extraordinarily alive. Never had he felt death, extinction so near, and
yet there seemed to be something outside himself, a spirit informing,
uplifting, and conquering the flesh. Perceptions, sympathies, which had lain dormant during the whole of his
thirty-nine years of life, now sprang into being. His imagination
awoke. He saw that it was this woman, now standing, with such complete
trust in the niceness of his honour, heart to heart with him, who had
made the best of that at once solitary and companioned journey which we
call life. He had thought her to be a fool; he now saw that, if a fool,
she had been a divine fool, ever engaged while on her pilgrimage with
the only things that now mattered. How great was the sum of her
achievement compared with his. She had been a beacon diffusing light and
warmth; he a shadow among shadows. If to-night he were engulfed in the
unknown, for so death was visioned by John Coxeter, who would miss him,
who would feel the poorer for his sudden obliteration? *       *       *       *       *

Coxeter came back into the present; he looked round him, and for the
first time he felt the disabling clutch of physical fear. The life-belts
were being given out, and there came to him a horrid vision of the
people round him as they might be an hour hence, drowned, heads down,
legs up, done to death by those monstrous yellow bracelets which they
were now putting on with such clumsy, feverish eagerness. He was touched on the arm, and a husky voice, with which he was by now
familiar, said urgently, "Mr. Coxeter--see, I've brought your bag out
of the saloon." The man whose name he knew to be Victor Munich was
standing at his elbow. "Look here, don't take offence, Mr. Coxeter, I
think better of the----" he hesitated--"the life-saver that you've got
in this bag of yours than you do. I'm willing to give you a fancy price
for it--what would you say to a thousand pounds? I daresay I shan't have
occasion to use it, but of course I take that risk." Coxeter, with a quick, unobtrusive movement, released Mrs. Archdale. He
turned and stared, not pleasantly, at the man who was making him so odd
an offer. Damn the fellow's impudence! "The life-saver is not for sale,"
he said shortly. Nan had heard but little of the quick colloquy. She did not connect it
with the fact that the strong protecting arms which had been about her
were now withdrawn,--and the tears came into her eyes. She felt both in
a physical and in a spiritual sense suddenly alone. John Coxeter, the
one human being who ever attempted to place himself on a more intimate,
personal plane with her, happened, by a strange irony of fate, to be her
companion in this awful adventure. But even he had now turned away from
her....

Nay, that was not quite true. He was again looking down at her, and she
felt his hand groping for hers. As he found and clasped it, he made a
movement as if he wished again to draw her towards him. Gently she
resisted, and at once she felt that he responded to her feeling of
recoil, and Nan, with a confused sense of shame and anger, was now hurt
by his submission. Most men in his place would have made short work of
her resistance,--would have taken her, masterfully, into the shelter of
his arms. There came a little stir among the people on the deck. Coxeter heard a
voice call out in would-be-cheery tones, "Now then, ladies! Please step
out--ladies and children only. Look sharp!" A sailor close by whispered
gruffly to his mate, "I'll stick to her anyhow. No crowded boats for me! I expect she'll be a good hour settling--perhaps a bit longer." As the first boat-load swung into the water, some of the people about
them gave a little cheer. Coxeter thought, but he will never be quite
sure, that in that cheer Nan joined. There was a delay of a minute; then
again the captain's voice rang out, this time in a sharper, more
peremptory tone, "Now, ladies, look sharp! Come along, please." Coxeter unclasped Nan's hand--he did not know how tightly he had been
holding it. He loved her. God, how he loved her! And now he must send
her away--away into the shrouding fog--away, just as he had found her. If what he had overheard were true, might he not be sending Nan to a
worse fate than that of staying to take the risk with him? But the very man who had spoken so doubtfully of the boats just now came
forward. "You'd best hurry your lady forward, sir. There's no time to
lose." There was an anxious, warning note in the rough voice. "You must go now," said Coxeter heavily. "I shall be all right, Mrs.
Archdale," for she was making no movement forward. "There'll be plenty
of room for the men in the next boat. I'd walk across the deck with you,
but I'm afraid they won't allow that." He spoke in his usual
matter-of-fact, rather dry tone, and Nan looked up at him doubtingly. Did he really wish her to leave him? Flickering streaks of light fell on his face. It was convulsed with
feeling,--with what had become an agony of renunciation. She withdrew
her eyes, feeling a shamed, exultant pang of joy. "I'll wait till
there's room for you, too, Mr. Coxeter." She breathed rather than
actually uttered the words aloud. Another woman standing close by was saying the same thing to her
companion, but in far more eager, more vociferous tones. "Is it likely
that I should go away now and leave you, Bob? Of course not--don't be
ridiculous!" But the Rendels pushed forward, and finally both found
places in this, the last boat but one. Victor Munich was still standing close to John Coxeter, and Mrs.
Archdale, glancing at his sallow, terror-stricken face, felt a thrill of
generous pity for the man. "Mr. Coxeter," she whispered, "do give him
that life-saver! Did he not ask you for it just now? We don't want it." Coxeter bent down and unstrapped his portmanteau. He handed to Nan the
odd, toy-like thing by which he had set so little store, but which now
he let go with a touch of reluctance. He saw her move close to the man
whose name she did not know. "Here is the life-saver," she said kindly;
"I heard you say you would like it." "But you?" --he stammered--"how about you?" "I don't want it. I shall be all right. I shouldn't put it on in any
case." He took it then, avidly; and they saw him go forward with a quick,
stealthy movement to the place where the last boat was being got ready
for the water. "There's plenty of room for you and the lady now, sir!" Coxeter hurried
Nan across the deck, but suddenly they were pushed roughly back. The
rope barriers had been cut, and a hand-to-hand struggle was taking place
round the boat,--an ugly scrimmage to which as little reference as
possible was made at the wreck inquiry afterwards.