Ellinor prevented him from capturing her hand by shudderingly retreating to the other end of the saloon. The contrast between the two men--the one who had sought, and still sought, to ensnare, and he whom she had wronged--who loved her so well, and had found, as she thought, a grave in that far away land, burned itself into her heart and brain with growing intensity, and wringing her hands, his name escaped her in a low voice. 'Robert--oh, Robert!' Would time ever heal--ever conquer her reproachful heart-wound? Fury gathered in the heart of Sleath. 'So,' said he, 'our mutual friend, Mr. Robert Wodrow, was not born to be hanged, if the newspaper accounts were true, by Jove; ha! ha!' 'Sir?' said Ellinor, scarcely understanding his brutal jest. 'Cheated the gallows--that is all.' In that speech he revealed the underlying brutality of his nature--of the parvenu--the son of the foundling; and, in his wrath, he followed it up by another home-thrust. 'What will be said of you--what thought, when it becomes known that you have been alone, cruising on board this yacht with us--with _me_?' He saw without pity the start, the pained flush and pallor that crossed her face by turns, as he coarsely put into words the fear that had been hovering in her own mind. She tried to reply to his cruel mockery; her white lips unclosed, and then shut again, for her voice died away upon them. With all his love-making, never once did Sleath's heart--or what passed for that organ--really soften towards the helpless girl, and times there were when he regarded her as a wolf might have done. He still made a mockery of the 'cousin story,' as he called it, and, though Ellinor on one occasion condescended to partially explain it, he did not, and could not, believe it to be anything else than some cunning scheme of Colville; and as that individual, whom he hated, was now in India, he had nothing to fear from him, and only hoped he might soon get 'knocked on the head.' At times there was something--what shall we call it?--almost savage in the admiration and exultation with which this man regarded the creature who was so entirely at his mercy, and who had been brought to him as flotsam from the sea! He keenly relished, too, in one sense, all _blasé_ as he was, the air of resistance with which she repulsed him; her bearing was so different and apart from that of most of the conventional girls he had generally met--not that he much affected the society of ladies generally. But he regarded them chiefly as a means of excitement--like champagne, an unruly horse, or a close run at _écarté_, and, so far as Ellinor was concerned, he had a firm desire to prove that his will was the stronger of the two. At last he left her and went on deck. She stretched out her arms on the saloon table, and bowed her head on them in a kind of dumb despair, as she thought over all the degrading speeches to which she had been subjected.