counted how
I had been taken by the pirates, and how for two years I had been with
them. I kept back nothing from her. I told her of many wild deeds
that I had done, and of the wild life I had led. By and by I came to
the night on which I had such a strange dream, or else had seen such a
strange vision, and here I hesitated. It seemed so wonderful, and
withal so unreal. I told it her, however, while she listened with
wonder-lit eyes.

"Yes, Roger," she said, "it all happened just as you saw it."

"And did you cry out, Ruth. Did you say, 'Roger is here?'"

"I did. I felt you were there, although I could not see you."

"And then, Ruth; what did you do?"

"I went out into the night. I knew your habit of going out on to the
headland when you desired to be alone, and I felt I must go somewhere
where you had been."

"Yes, Ruth, and afterwards?"

"I went out and wandered for a long time, until I felt my heart was
breaking. I seemed all alone in the world, with no one to help me, and
I cried out in anguish, 'Roger, come home.'"

"And I heard you, Ruth. After I had seen you in my dream, or whatever
it was, I went on deck, and while there I heard your cry, and I
answered back. Did you not hear me?"

"No, Roger, I heard nothing in answer to my cry, save a kind of wail,
which, as it mingled with the splash of the waves seemed to be only a
mocking echo of my words."

"And yet your words called me home."

"Thank God--and then?"

I told her how I had come home, and had met with the fisherman who had
informed me of her death, and how she had died because of Wilfred and
Mr. Inch, who had goaded her to do what was death to her.

"And what followed, Roger?" she said, anxiously, as I hesitated a
minute.

"I hated Wilfred as I never hated man before. I felt that he was
deserving of the worst that could befall any man, and I determined to
be revenged."

Again I hesitated, and again she told me to go on.

Should I tell her? Should I with a few words blacken her life, should
I destroy her every hope? Yet the truth must out. It always does, and
I should but put off the evil day by refraining from telling her. Yet
it was terribly hard, the man must have a steady hand who writes his
own death-warrant without shaking.

She saw, I think, how terrible was the ordeal, for she nestled closer
to me and spoke gently.

"Dear Roger," she said, "it must have nearly driven you mad to meet
him."

I think this gave m