's salon. For a moment
he stopped in the doorway. He did not see the woman he had come to meet.
He saw before him a lady handsomely and richly dressed in a Parisian
morning costume--a lady with waving masses of dark hair above a lovely
face, a lady with a beautiful white hand, which was half raised as he
appeared in the doorway.

She stood with her hand half raised. She had never seen the man before
her. He was a tall, imposing gentleman, in a dark suit, over which he
wore a light-colored overcoat. One hand was gloved, and in the other he
held a hat. His slightly curling brown beard and hair were trimmed after
the fashion of the day, and his face, though darkened by the sun, showed
no trace of toil, or storm, or anxious danger. He was a tall,
broad-shouldered gentleman, with an air of courtesy, an air of dignity,
an air of forbearance, which were as utterly unknown to her as everything
else about him, except his eyes--those were the same eyes she had seen on
board the _Castor_ and on the desert sands.

Had it not been for the dark eyes which looked so steadfastly at him,
Captain Horn, would have thought that he had been shown into the wrong
room. But he now knew there was no mistake, and he entered. Edna raised
her hand and advanced to meet him.

He shook hands with her exactly as he had written to her, and she shook
hands with him just as she had telegraphed to him. Much of her natural
color had left her face. As he had never seen this natural color, under
the sun-brown of the Pacific voyage, he did not miss it.

Instantly she began to speak. How glad she was that she had prepared
herself to speak as she would have spoken to any other good friend! So
she expressed her joy at seeing him again, well and successful after
all these months of peril, toil, and anxiety, and they sat down near
each other.

He looked at her steadfastly, and asked her many things about Ralph, Mrs.
Cliff, and the negroes, and what had happened since he left San
Francisco. He listened with a questioning intentness as she spoke. She
spoke rapidly and concisely as she answered his questions and asked him
about himself. She said little about the gold. One might have supposed
that he had arrived at Marseilles with a cargo of coffee. At the same
time, there seemed to be, on Edna's part, a desire to lengthen out her
recital of unimportant matters. She now saw that the captain knew she did
not care to talk of these things. She knew that he was waiti