'Why, all your friends came out in the some steamer as he did. They must have told you. Everybody here is talking about him. That's why I want him for our theatricals: everyone will come to see him.'
'Well, if the mystery, whatever it may be, remains unrevealed up to the night of the performance, you will have a house all the more crowded.'
'But I want to know all about it for myself. Is it really true that he had fallen overboard from another ship, and was picked up after being several weeks at sea?'
'You would be justified in calling that a mystery, at any rate,' said Colonel Gerald.
'That is what some people here are saying, I can assure you,' she cried quickly. 'Others say that he was merely taken aboard the steamer at St. Helena, after having been wrecked; but that is far too unromantic.'
'Oh, yes, far too unromantic.'
'Then you do know the truth? Oh, please tell it to me. I have always said I was sure it was true that a girl on the steamer saw him floating on the horizon with an unusually powerful pilot-glass.'
'Rather mysterious for a fellow to be floating about on the horizon with a pilot-glass, Lottie.'
'What a shame to make fun of me, especially as our performance is in the cause of charity, and I want Mr. Markham's name to be the particular attraction! Do tell me if he was picked up at sea.'
'I believe he was.'