“You must not fear ill fortune,” Jenny answered. “A man of your courage, your energy, will not give way to despair, Fritz.”
“Let me finish, Jenny! One day the Unicorn arrived, over there, off New Switzerland. She went away again, and took us to Europe. From that moment misfortune has never ceased to strike you. Colonel Montrose died before he could see his child——”
“Poor father!” said Jenny, her eyes wet. “Yes, that happiness was withheld from him—of clasping me in his arms, and rewarding my rescuer by placing my hand in his. But God willed otherwise, and we must submit.”
“Well, Jenny dear,” Fritz went on, “at all events there you were, back in England; you had seen your own land again; you might have remained there with your own people and found quiet happiness.”
“Happiness! Without you, Fritz?”
“And then, Jenny, you would not have incurred fresh dangers, after all those which you had escaped so miraculously. Yet you consented to follow me back to our island again.”
“Do you forget that I am your wife, Fritz? Could I have hesitated to leave Europe, to rejoin all those whom I love, your family, which is mine henceforward?”
“But Jenny, Jenny, that does not make it less true that I drew you into fresh danger—and danger that I cannot think of without panic. Our present situation is desperate. Oh! those mutineers who caused it all, who cast us adrift! And you, shipwrecked once in the Dorcas, now cast again upon an unknown island even less habitable than Burning Rock!”
“But I am not alone; I have you, and Frank, and our friends, brave and determined men. Fritz, I shrink from no dangers present or to come! I know that you will do everything possible for our safety.”
“Everything, my darling,” Fritz exclaimed, “but though the thought that you are there must double my courage, yet it also grieves me so much that I want to throw myself at your knees and beg for your forgiveness! It is my fault that——”