Then by the time she was clad in dry garments she felt better and braver, so she went back to the other room with the tears unshed.
'Duke Radford still lay on the floor in blank unconsciousness, while Mrs.Burton was busy mopping up the dirty water which had run from the wet garments of the others.
"Mr.Ferrars has gone to get into dry clothes, and then he will see about putting poor Father to bed," Mrs.Burton explained.

Then she burst into agitated thanksgiving: "Oh, Katherine, how fortunate that you brought him home with you, and how wonderful it is that there is always someone to help when most it is heeded! Whatever should we have done to-day if we had had no one but the fisher people to help us ?" Katherine was silent, and before the eyes of her mind there arose the picture of that moment before the two big fragments of ice collided, the moment which enabled Jervis Ferrars and herself to get into the boat.

But for that pause in the destruction of the ice island it was more than probable that neither she nor the stranger would have been there at all.

Of this she said nothing.
Nellie had quite enough to bear without being frightened by tragedies which had not happened.
"I am afraid we brought you in a fearful lot of water," Katherine said.
"It will soon be wiped up, and the floor none the worse.

That poor Mr.Ferrars had no boots or stockings on; his feet were merely swathed in towels.