“Where am I?” he asked.
“At Monksland,” answered Morris.
“That’s all right, that’s where I should be, but the ship, the ship”—then a pause and a cry: “Stella, Stella!”
Morris pricked his ears. “Where is Stella?” he asked.
“On the rocks. She struck, then darkness, all darkness. Stella, come here, Stella!”
A memory awoke in the mind of Morris, and he leant over the patient, who again had sunk into delirium.
“Do you mean Stella Fregelius?” he asked.
The man turned his flushed face and opened his dark eyes.
“Of course, Stella Fregelius—who else? There is only one Stella,” and again he became incoherent.
For a while Morris plied him with further questions; but as he could obtain no coherent answer, he gave him his medicine and left him quiet. Then for another half-hour or so he sat and watched, while a certain theory took shape in his mind. This gentleman must be the new rector. It seemed as though, probably accompanied by his daughter, he had taken passage in a Danish tramp boat bound for Northwold, which had touched at some Northumbrian port. Morris knew that the incoming clergyman had a daughter, for, now that he thought of it, he had heard Mr. Tomley mention the fact at the dinner-party on the night when he became engaged. Yes, and certainly she was named Stella. But there was no woman among those who had come to land, and he understood the injured man to suggest that his daughter had been left upon the steamer which was said to have gone ashore upon some rocks; or, perhaps, upon the Sunk Rocks themselves.