"Pity Donald Kayne, Miss Nita—the worst enemy you have on earth unless it be that little cat, Azalea Courtney!"
"Yes, he called himself my enemy, Lizette, and yet I pity him."
"You're wasting your kind feelings, Miss Nita. Now where do you suppose you are this blessed moment?"
"On an island in Fortune's Bay, you said, Lizette."
"Yes, on the loneliest island in the bay, and shut up in a lonely old stone house far away from any but fishermen's huts, for nobody lives here only the roughest, poorest sort of people, and mighty few even of that sort!"
"But what does it matter, Lizette, since my husband will come soon and take us away?"
"Not while he thinks we are both drowned and dead."
"But you have written to tell him we are rescued."
"Yes, I have written, but I have not been able to bribe any one to post my letter yet. Oh, my poor little darling, don't you understand? We are prisoners!"
"Prisoners!" gasped the girl, horrified.
"Yes, Miss Nita, or perhaps I ought to say Mrs. Mountcastle. Would you like it better?"
"Yes, for it seems to bring me nearer to my darling husband," cried Nita, blushing warmly. Then her lip quivered. "Oh, why does Donald Kayne hold us prisoners?" she cried.
"That is very easy to answer, Mrs. Mountcastle. It is all about that emerald ring you are wearing. He says he will never let us go free from this house until you confess how you come to be wearing that serpent ring."
Nita groaned, and looked down with loathing eyes at the baleful jewel that hung loosely on her wasted hand.
"Lizette, how thin I have grown! I must have been ill some time."
"It is two weeks since your wedding-night, and we landed here nine or ten days ago."
"And Donald Kayne?"
"He is here with two people—an old fisherman and his wife—our jailers. We are closely watched and guarded, for the old people believe you are crazy. He has told them so. But, dearie, don't lose heart. Now that you are getting well we will watch our chances to escape."
"And you know, Lizette, my husband will be searching for us. He will be sure to come here. Love will show him the way."
"You forget that he thinks you were drowned that night, when the great waves washed us off the deck of his yacht."
"Yes, I forgot," sobbed Nita, with raining tears. "Oh, my darling, I shall never see you again!"
And for a few moments she wept in uncontrollable despair. Lizette, although almost heart-broken herself, tried to soothe her, and she began to catch at little straws of hope.
"Cannot we bribe those old people to let us escape? Oh, Lizette, I would give them my whole chest of gold for liberty!" she cried.
"Alas! I have already tried them, and failed. Kayne has them completely under his control. You will never get free unless you tell him that secret he wants to know. Oh, my dear young lady, do tell him—do tell him! for he wants to know so badly, and surely it cannot matter to you."
"Oh, Lizette, Lizette, you do not know—you cannot dream–"
Suddenly there came to her a wild temptation. Miser Farnham was dead. Captain Van Hise had told her so. What if she broke the oath of silence whose keeping was about to wreck her life? She need not fear his vengeance.
While these frenzied thoughts ran through Nita's mind Lizette walked restlessly over to the window, and leaning against the iron bars that ran across it, stared restlessly out over the blue bay dotted with fishing-boats and green islands.
Suddenly Lizette's pretty blue eyes grew bright and alert, and she strained them eagerly over the water. A few minutes of silence; then she bounded across the room to Nita, who, with her face bowed down, was lost in troubled thought. Stooping over the young girl, she lifted her up in both arms.
"Can you walk across to the window if I lead you, dear? I want to show you such a pretty sight."
She half-led, half-carried the weak girl, and pointed with a shaking finger out over the blue bay.
"God be praised, we shall escape!" she panted joyfully. "Look, darling, at that pretty yacht riding into harbor at this very island. Do you see her name?—Nita. Heaven has sent your husband to Fortune's Bay!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
"HE WILL KILL MY HUSBAND."
Nita gazed with joyful eyes and a wildly throbbing heart at the graceful yacht lightly skimming the blue waters of the beautiful bay, as it glided into harbor at the island. He was near her now, her own love. Surely he would come to her rescue, for it must have been Heaven's own guiding that had brought him to Fortune's Bay—Heaven that had saved her from the perils of the stormy deep, and that was still watching over her fate.
She thought with a shudder of the temptation that had assailed her just now to break the oath of silence sworn on the dead hand in the miser's gold vault. No, no, she must not. An oath was a solemn thing, and she had been desperate with despair, or she would not have dreamed of breaking it.
And what would it avail her enemy to know the tragic death that had befallen the woman whose fate he had sought to know. He had loved her, he said. Would it not break his heart to know how she had suffered and died? Surely, it was a mercy to Donald Kayne to keep him in uncertainty.
"Lizette, what if we wave our handkerchiefs from the window? Perhaps some one on the yacht might notice it and make inquiries," she exclaimed.
They spent some time at this, but of no avail, although they could see moving figures on the deck. But no one noticed or recognized the frantic signals from the window of the far-off stone house.
"Lizette, can you make out any of the men on her deck? My eyes are so weak, the glare of the light blinds them," murmured Nita.
"No, dearie; they seem like little black specks to me. If I had some glasses we could make them out plainly. I'll go and ask the old woman to lend us a pair," and Lizette hurried down-stairs on her errand.
Mrs. Rhodus, the fisherman's wife, looked at her with suspicion when she made her request.
"What do you want with them?" she asked roughly.
"My mistress wants to watch the ships upon the sea."
"Hain't got no glasses—never had none," replied the woman nonchalantly.
"Where's your husband?"
"Out in his boat."
"And Mr. Kayne?"
"He went for a walk just now."
"And is there no one here but you?"
"No, not a soul; but don't go for to think you can get away from me. I'm as strong as two men; besides, there's a big dog out in the yard that 'ud tear you both in pieces if you went outside."
Lizette smiled scornfully.
"How could we get away, and my mistress too weak to walk?" she exclaimed.
While she was haranguing the woman Nita continued to gaze eagerly toward the trim little yacht in the offing, her heart throbbing wildly with the burning desire to see Dorian again.
"He is there—there, so near me, and yet so far, believing me dead," she sobbed. "Oh, how his heart must be torn with anguish at the thought! How strange and sad a fate is mine."
Her weak eyes, tired with the glare of the light and sun, drooped wearily to the ground, and a cry of wonder and dismay broke from her lips.
Directly beneath her window stood a large, tall man in sailor garb gazing up into her face. But it was not the mere proximity of the man that had so startled the young girl. It was the fact that she had recognized in him the son of old Meg, the fortune-teller—a man who had once madly loved her, and from whose unwelcome love she had fled in fear and loathing.
For more than three years Nita had not looked upon the face of Jack Dineheart, and when she saw him gazing up at her with eager eyes, she could not repress a cry of surprise at sight of this ghost from the past.
Jack Dineheart had a bronzed, handsome, sullen face, seamed with the lines of thirty-five years or more, and his big brown eyes snapped with triumph now at the girl's low cry of recognition.
"So it is you, Nita?"
"Yes it is I, Mr. Dineheart," answered the girl, with a sudden wild hope that she might move his heart to pity.