She was lying on the lounge, or rude sofa, her hands bound in front of her, her feet tied together, and in her mouth a rude gag made of a coarse pocket-handkerchief. By her side was the dog, moaning and whimpering, but making, when he entered, an attempt to jump up and fondle him. It also was tied, to the foot of the couch.
"Oh! Barbara!" he exclaimed, rushing forward to her, while he saw with infinite thanks that her eyes were open, and that she seemed to have suffered no further brutality than being made a prisoner of. "Oh! Barbara! that he should have treated you so!"
Then in a moment he had taken the gag from her mouth and had set her free, while all the time he was speaking kindly and considerately to her, and pitying her for having been so treated. And her first words were:
"Thank God, you are alive! I have been picturing you to myself for hours as dead. Did he not try to kill you?"
"Yes, Barbara," he said, after a moment's pause, almost dreading to tell her the tale, yet recognising that he must do so. "Yes, he tried to kill me."
"How?"
"By drowning. He must have bored some holes in the yacht unknown to me, when I slept. Oh! Barbara! I know I promised to keep careful watch, yet I was so tired, and at last I fell asleep. When I awoke the yacht was full of water--was sinking. Then----" he hesitated to tell her of how he had been locked in the cabin--"I--I escaped--I swam for my life."
"And he?" she asked faintly, almost in a whisper. "What of him?"
"He is dead."
"Ah! yes," she replied, with a shiver. "I know. I heard the report of your revolver. Then I knew all. Oh! how I wish he had not died at your hands!"