“He's doing it so the crew won't hear you,” was Minnie's answer.
There was something in the quiet way she said it that caught her husband's attention.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he is not trying to pick us up,” she went on in the same composed voice. “He threw me overboard.”
“You are not making a mistake?”
“How could I? I was at the main rigging, looking to see if any more rain threatened. He must have left the wheel and crept behind me. I was holding on to a stay with one hand. He gripped my hand free from behind and threw me over. It's too bad you didn't know, or else you would have staid aboard.”
Duncan groaned, but said nothing for several minutes. The green light changed the direction of its course.
“She's gone about,” he announced. “You are right. He's deliberately working around us and to windward. Up wind they can never hear me. But here goes.”
He called at minute intervals for a long time. The green light disappeared, being replaced by the red, showing that the yacht had gone about again.
“Minnie,” he said finally, “it pains me to tell you, but you married a fool. Only a fool would have gone overboard as I did.”