"My dear Miss Leslie," he murmured, "if you but knew my delight over having found both you and Tom safe and well!"
"Then you really know him?" she replied. "Yes, to be sure; he called you by your first name. Wait! I remember now. One day soon after we were cast ashore—the second day, when we were thinking how to get fire, to drive away the leopard—"
"Leopard? I say! So that's where you got this odd gown?"
"No—the mother leopard and the cubs. I was going to say, Tom remarked that James Scarbridge had been his chum."
"Had been? He meant is!"
"Then it's true! Oh, isn't it strange and—and splendid? You know, I did not connect the remark with you, Lord James. He had told me to try to think how we were to find food for the next meal. His reference to you was made quite casually in his talk with Winthrope."
"Winthrope!" exclaimed Lord James. "Then he, too, reached shore? Yet if so—"
The girl put her hand before her eyes, as if to shut out some terrible sight. Her voice sank to a whisper: "He—he was killed in the second cyclone—a few days ago."
"Ah!" muttered the young earl. After a pause, he asked in a tone of profound sympathy, "And the others—Lady Bayrose?"
"Don't ask! don't ask!" she cried, shuddering and trembling.