"I suppose that to be my status, although I hardly know," I answered, yet unable to refrain from accepting the extended hand. "I was certainly brought aboard in chains, and much against my will. I presume you know this person?"
She swept my face with a swift, questioning glance, and then looked beyond me at the man standing beside the desk.
"No, I do not," slowly. "I have no remembrance of ever seeing him before."
"Is that not rather strange," I asked, steeling myself to the task, "after asserting that he was your husband? He is the owner of this vessel—Philip Henley."
She reached out gropingly, and grasped the back of a chair, staring at his face, and then glancing into mine, as though bewildered, suspecting some trick. I could see her lips move, as if she endeavored to speak, but could not articulate the words. Henley—-for I must call him that—advanced a step toward us, his thin lips fashioning themselves into an ironic smile.
"You receive this information about as I supposed you would, Madam," he said coldly. "I was doubtless the very last person you expected to encounter. Your accomplice here informs me that I am supposed to be dead. I am inclined to think you were both mistaken—but not more so than in regard to my marriage."
She straightened up, her eyes shining.
"You are not Philip Henley," she said firmly. "He is my husband."
The smile widened, revealing the cruel white teeth.
"I expected heroics. It was hardly to be supposed that you would confess your fraud at once, and—before your lover."