half an hour ago, I should have answered,
'I am here to stop your marriage with Hubert Varrick at whatever cost. I
have traveled by night and by day, foot-sore and hungry, to get here in
time to prevent it.' I-- I thought you had perished in the fire on the
island, until I read the article in the paper announcing your marriage."

"If this is all you have to say to me, permit me to say good-morning,"
she returned icily, turning to leave the place.

"You shall listen to me!" he cried. "I vowed in days gone by that you
should never be happy with Hubert Varrick. You promised that you would
marry me, and those words changed my whole life."

"Well, now that I am another's bride, what can you do about it?" sneered
Gerelda.

"I mean to see Varrick and have a little talk with him," he answered. "I
will tell him how, on the very night before the marriage was to have
taken place at the Crossmon Hotel, at Alexandria Bay, I threw myself on
my knees at your feet, and cried out to you to spare me; that you had
played with my heart too long, and urged you to fly with me, and that
you said, while I knelt before you, that if you decided to fly with me
you would let me know by sunrise the following morning, but that you
must have all night to think it over.

"Do you dare face me and deny that?" continued Captain Frazier, seizing
her white wrist and holding it in an iron grip.

"No, I do not deny it," she answered. "But what of it? What do you
expect to make of it?"

"This!" he cried, furiously. "I intend to be even with you. I will have
a glorious revenge! I will see Hubert Varrick before he leaves this
house, and say to him: 'I hope you may be happy with your bride,' and I
will laugh in his face, crying out: 'She eloped with me not so very long
ago, and we went to my island home, where we kept in hiding until the
sensation should blow over. We remained there, as I can prove by all my
servants, and I was a very slave to her sweet caprices.'"

"You would not say that!" cried Gerelda. "I would tell him my side of
the story--that you kidnapped me, and held me by force on the island."

"Varrick is a man of the world," he returned, tauntingly. "Your side of
the story is too flimsy for him or any one else to believe."

"Stop! You must not--you shall not!" cried Gerelda, wildly. "I-- I will
make terms with you. I see you are shabbily dressed and in want of
money. I will give you a check, here and now, for a thousand dollars, if
you wi