"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[Pg 38] never attempt that means of escape, even from this place."

[Pg 38]

"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.

Would Gerelda keep her vow? She had said when she recovered consciousness and found herself on the island, and the boatman gone:

"I will never utter another word from this hour until I am set free again. You are beneath contempt, Captain Frazier, to kidnap a young girl at the altar."

He never forgot how she looked at him in the clear moonlight as he turned to her, crying out passionately:

"It is your own fault, Gerelda. Why did you draw me on to love you so? You encouraged me up to the last moment, and then it was too late for me to give you up."[Pg 39]

[Pg 39]

Chapter VI.

Chapter VI

THE SWEET AND TENDER LETTERS THAT SUDDENLY CEASED TO COME.

 Prev. P 24/169 next