"If I thought for a moment that he suspected my presence here, I would lose no time in getting away from Wau-Winet Island, and taking her with me."
"You need have no fear, sir," returned the man.
For an hour or more Captain Frazier paced slowly up and down under the trees, smoking cigar after cigar in rapid succession.
"It is a terrible thing," he muttered, "when love for a woman drives a man to the verge of madness. I swore that Gerelda should never marry Hubert Varrick, if I had to kill her. But I have done better. He will never look upon her face again."
At length he walked slowly to the house. He was met on the porch by a little French maid who seemed to be looking for him.
"Well, Marie?" said Captain Frazier.
"I have been looking for you, sir," returned the girl quickly. "I can do nothing with mademoiselle. She will not speak; she will not eat. She lies there hour after hour with her beautiful face turned toward the wall and her white hands clasped together. She might be a dead woman for all the interest she evinces in anything. I very much fear, sir, that she will keep her vow—never to speak again—never in this world."
"You must keep close watch that she does not attempt to make away with herself, Marie," he continued, earnestly. "Heaven only knows how she obtained that revolver I took away from her out in the grounds to-night. She was kneeling down in the long grass, and had it already pressed to her temple, when I appeared in the very nick of time and wrenched it from her little white hand. She would do anything save drown herself to escape from here. Her father lost his life that way, and she would never attempt that means of escape, even from this place."
"She even refuses to have her bridal-dress removed," said the maid; "and I do not know what to do about it. She has uttered no word since first she crossed your threshold; she will not speak."
Captain Frazier looked troubled, distressed.