‘Wilfrid,’ I exclaimed, ‘let me exhort you to go on deck and take Miss Jennings with you. I am sure Lady Monson will listen to my representations. It is due to her to remember that we are four and that she stands alone, and that the suddenness, the unexpectedness of this visit, scarcely gives her a chance fully to realise what has come about, and to form an intelligent decision.’ She uttered a short hysterical laugh, without a smile, whilst her face glimmered white with rage in the gloom of the cabin. ‘My decision is quite intelligent enough to satisfy me,’ she said, in a voice so irritatingly scornful that it is out of my power to furnish the least idea of it, whilst she looked at me as though she would strike me dead with her eyes; ‘I mean to remain here.’ ‘No, mum, no,’ growled Captain Crimp. ‘You know, I presume, Lady Monson,’ said I, ‘that Colonel Hope-Kennedy has gone on board the “Bride”?’ ‘I do not care,’ she answered; ‘Captain Crimp, I insist upon your requesting these people to leave me.’ ‘Come!’ cried Wilfrid furiously, and he grasped her by the arm. She released herself with a shriek and struck him hard on the face; a painful and disgusting scene was threatened; Miss Jennings was crying bitterly; I dreaded the madman in Wilfrid, and sprang between them as he grasped his wife’s arm again. ‘For God’s sake, Wilfrid----’ I began, but was silenced by her shrieks. She sent up scream after scream, wrestling with her husband, whose grip of steel I was powerless to relax, and who, with a purple face and a devilish grin of insanity upon his lips, was dragging her towards the door. On a sudden she seemed to suffocate, she beat the air wildly with her arm that was free. Then clapped her hand to her heart, swayed a little, and fell to the deck. I was just in time to save her head from striking the hard plank, and there she lay in a dead faint. CHAPTER XXIV. THE DUEL. ‘This is our chance,’ exclaimed Captain Crimp; ‘she’ll go quietly now. She might have done it afore though. Let’s bear a hand or she’ll be reviving.’ ‘Wilfrid, see if our boat’s alongside, will you?’ I cried, anxious to get him out of the way and to correct as far as possible the unmistakable mood of madness that had come upon him with Lady Monson’s insults and blow, by finding him occupation; ‘and send Finn to help us, and let the men stand by ready to receive the lady.’ He cast a look of fury at his wife as she lay motionless on the deck, her head supported on my arm, and sped away in long strides, chattering to himself as he went. ‘Is she dead!’ cried Miss Jennings, in a voice of terror and her ashen face streaming. ‘Bless us, no,’ said I, ‘a downright faint, and thank goodness for it. Now, captain.’