lla, come
here, Stella!"

A memory awoke in the mind of Morris, and he leant over the patient, who
again had sunk into delirium.

"Do you mean Stella Fregelius?" he asked.

The man turned his flushed face and opened his dark eyes.

"Of course, Stella Fregelius--who else? There is only one Stella," and
again he became incoherent.

For a while Morris plied him with further questions; but as he could
obtain no coherent answer, he gave him his medicine and left him quiet.
Then for another half-hour or so he sat and watched, while a certain
theory took shape in his mind. This gentleman must be the new rector.
It seemed as though, probably accompanied by his daughter, he had taken
passage in a Danish tramp boat bound for Northwold, which had touched
at some Northumbrian port. Morris knew that the incoming clergyman had
a daughter, for, now that he thought of it, he had heard Mr. Tomley
mention the fact at the dinner-party on the night when he became
engaged. Yes, and certainly she was named Stella. But there was no woman
among those who had come to land, and he understood the injured man to
suggest that his daughter had been left upon the steamer which was said
to have gone ashore upon some rocks; or, perhaps, upon the Sunk Rocks
themselves.

Now, the only rocks within twenty miles of them were these famous Sunk
Rocks, about six knots away. Even within his own lifetime four vessels
had been lost there, either because they had missed, or mistaken, the
lightship signal further out to sea, as sometimes happened in a fog such
as prevailed this night, or through false reckonings. The fate of
all these vessels had been identical; they had struck upon the reef,
rebounded or slid off, and foundered in deep water. Probably in this
case the same thing had happened. At least, the facts, so far as he knew
them, pointed to that conclusion. Evidently the escape of the crew had
been very hurried, for they had saved nothing. He judged also that the
clergyman, Mr. Fregelius, having rushed on deck, had been injured by the
fall of some spar or block consequent upon the violence of the impact
of the vessel upon the reef, and in this hurt condition had been thrown
into the boat by the sailors.

Then where was the daughter Stella? Was she killed in the same fashion
or drowned? Probably one or the other. But there was a third bare
possibility, which did no credit to the crew, that she had been
forgotten in the panic and hurry, and left beh