come into it
unless it pleases you. And there is a bell in your cabin; and if you
ring it, Christina will answer."

She heard him out patiently. Her reply was a scornful, perhaps nervous,
laugh.

"Why, this is mere folly," she exclaimed. "It is simple madness. I begin
to believe that you are really ill, after all; and it is your mind that
is affected. Surely you don't know what you are doing?"

"You are angry, Gerty," said he,

But the first blaze of her wrath and indignation had passed away; and
now fear was coming uppermost.

"Surely, Keith, you cannot be dreaming of such a mad thing! Oh, it is
impossible! It is a joke: it was to frighten me; it was to punish me,
perhaps. Well, I have deserved it; but now--now you have succeeded; and
you will let me go ashore, farther down the river."

Her tone was altered. She had been watching his face.

"Oh no, Gerty; oh no," he said. "Do you not understand yet? You were
everything in the world to me; you were life itself. Without you I had
nothing, and the world might just as well come to an end for me. And
when I thought you were going away from me, what could I do? I could not
reach you by letters, and letters; and how could I know what the people
around you were saying to you? Ah, you do not know what I have suffered,
Gerty! And always I was saying to myself that if I could get you away
from these people, you would remember the time that you gave me the red
rose, and all those beautiful days would come back again, and I would
lake your hand again, and I would forget altogether about the terrible
nights when I saw you beside me and heard you laugh just as in the old
times. And I knew there was only the one way left. How could I but try
that? I knew you would be angry, but I hoped your anger would go away.
And now you are angry, Gerty, and my speaking to you is not of much
use--as yet; but I can wait until I see yourself again, as you used to
be, in the garden--don't you remember, Gerty?"

Her face was proud, cold, implacable.

"Do I understand you aright: that you have shut me up in this yacht and
mean to take me away?"

"Gerty, I have saved you from yourself!"

"Will you be so kind as to tell me where we are going?"

"Why not away back to the Highlands, Gerty?" said he, eagerly. "And then
some day when your heart relents, and you forgive me, you will put your
hand in mine, and we will walk up the road to Castle Dare. Do you not
think they will be glad to see us