I am no mystic and no spiritualist, and I only mention it as one of the
mysteries of human sympathy between far-distant friends, that during a
part of the time when my dear one was going through the fierce struggle
she describes, and was dreaming of frozen regions and a broken pen, the
ship I sailed on had got itself stuck fast in a field of pack ice in
latitude 76, under the ice barrier by Charcot Bay, and that while we
were lying like helpless logs, cut off from communication with the
world, unable to do anything but groan and swear and kick our heels in
our bunks at every fresh grinding of our crunching sides, my own mind,
sleeping and waking, was for ever swinging back, with a sort of yearning
prayer to my darling not to yield to the pressure which I felt so
damnably sure was being brought to bear on her.