"No, Roy," she replied, "I should not be surprised, but I should be very glad!"
"Your answer sounds strange to me," Roy declared, with a puzzled glance across the table. "Anyhow, you are calm enough so that I don't need to hesitate in telling you that your father's letter to me actually contains this astonishing news."
"Thank God, Roy!" Ethel said reverently. "The madman has become sane again. Thank God, he did obey my sealed orders."
Roy stared at his wife in open bewilderment.
"What on earth do you mean, Ethel?" he demanded. "Have you been keeping something from me?"
"Yes, my dear husband, I've been guilty of just that thing. I've just been waiting and praying for the hour when I could come to you and give you the very information that father has been able to send you. I'll tell you the whole story. But, first, I must exact a promise. For Ichabod's sake, as well as my own, you must not breathe a word of the truth to Arthur Van Dusen."
Still mightily wondering as to the meaning of all this mystery and eager for its solution, Roy readily gave the required promise that he would keep Ethel's secret. Thereupon she told him the story.
"The night Arthur and poor old Ichabod returned to us aboard The Hialdo with the Doctor's cap and note, I believed as firmly as you did that the unfortunate man had been swallowed up in the quicksands, or swept away to death by the tide. At the time when he left me alone in the shack in order to go for help, I would not let him go until he had agreed to carry with him sealed orders under which he should act. I wrote these and gave them to him, and he promised to follow my instructions. They were for his future guidance. I believed that, if he followed them, he would not only escape punishment, but reform so as to be of service once more to the world. Naturally, when help did not arrive from Portsmouth, I concluded that his strength had not been sufficient for the task, that he had perished. So, I was not surprised by the news brought to the yacht by the men who had been searching for him.
"That morning when I visited Portsmouth, Roy dear, I had two objects in view. One was to verify the fact that Doctor Garnet had not reached the town. The other was to visit the young physician whom I knew to be located there, in order to arrange with him to care for the afflicted man in case he should arrive later on. As I was about to leave the yacht, early in the morning, Captain Ichabod appeared."
Ethel's gravity vanished for a moment. Her lustrous eyes narrowed and twinkled. She smiled until the dimples in her cheeks were shadows against the rose.