Hugh Price and his associate, Giles Peram, were nonplussed, puzzled and intimidated by the strong, vigorous, and at the same time mysterious arm which had suddenly been raised to protect him whom they hated. "It is extraordinary! It is very extraordinary!" declared Peram, clearing his throat and strutting over the floor. "Where is your wife?" "On board the ship _Despair_." "Bring her home. Why do you not send and bring her home? The trouble is over, and we have put down the rebellion." "I will." After the arrival of the commission and soldiers from England, the hanging went on at a brisk pace, and Mrs. Price had lived like one stupefied on board the _Despair_, not daring to go ashore. She seldom spoke, and never save when addressed. She acted so strangely, that her daughter feared she was losing her mind. All day long she would sit with her sad eyes on the floor, and she had not smiled since she came aboard. When the messenger came from the shore, with the command from Hugh Price for her to come to the home he had provided, she started like a guilty person detected in crime. Turning her great, sad eyes on the man who had been their protector in their hour of peril, she asked: "Shall I go?" "The place of a good wife is with her husband," he answered. Then Rebecca, appealing to him, asked: "Must I obey Hugh Price?" "Is he your father?" "No." "You are of age?" "I am." "Then choose with whom you will live, Hugh Price, or with your brother on the James River." "I will live with my brother." Mrs. Price cast her eyes on the river filled with floating ice and, shuddering, said: "The water is so dark and cold, and the boat is so frail." "Shall I take you in mine?" asked Sir Albert. "Will you?" "If you desire it." The boat was lowered, and Mrs. Price was tenderly assisted into it. Then he climbed down into the stern, seized the rudder, and gave the command to his four sturdy oarsmen: "Pull ashore." It was a bleak, cold, wintry day. The wind swept down the ice-filled river. From the deck, closely muffled in wraps and robes, Rebecca saw her mother and Sir Albert depart for the snow-clad shore. Her eyes were blinded with tears, for she knew how unhappy her mother was. As she watched the boat gliding forward amid the floating blocks of ice, she was occasionally alarmed at the Deeming narrow escapes it made. The current was very swift, for the tide was running out, and tons of ice were all about the boat; but a skilful hand was at the helm, and the little boat darted hither and thither, from point to point, safely through the waters. Once she was quite sure it would be crushed between two small icebergs; but it glided swiftly out of danger. The nearer they approached the shore, the denser became the ice pack, and the danger accordingly increased. At almost every moment, Rebecca uttered an exclamation of fear lest the boat should be crushed.