“It was a cursed tramp!—a black-visaged, red-eyed, elflocked cut-throat, who looked like a fiend from the Inferno, with all the sulphurous smoke and fire hanging around him! I wish I had a hand on him now! I’d break his diabolical neck and send him back to Tartarus, where he belongs!” wrathfully exclaimed the commodore. “Hush! She moves, I think,” said the lady; and both watchers bent eagerly over the entranced form. But they were mistaken. She did not move, nor, though her attendants continued their efforts to recover her, did she show any sign of consciousness until nearly an hour had passed away. When at length she sighed and stirred, Dorcas raised her head while the lady placed a glass of wine to her lips so that she mechanically swallowed the stimulant. Revived by the wine, she opened her eyes, sat up in bed and gazed around in confusion for a moment. Then a paroxysm of sadness seemed to sweep over her. She pressed her hands upon her eyes, upon her brows, upon her temples, pushed back her hair and stared around with starting orbs and open mouth, and then suddenly shrieked forth: “Where is he? Oh, where is he? Where? Where?” “He is gone, my dear. Don’t be afraid. Calm yourself. It is all right,” answered the commodore soothingly; for he thought her excitement was caused by revived terror of the tramp. At the words of the old man she turned her wildly roving eyes on him with an intense stare of astonishment. “Gone! Gone! Did you say gone? Oh, _where_, has he gone? _Why_ did you let him go?” she cried with frantic eagerness. “I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had committed him to prison, only there wasn’t sufficient grounds. But don’t be frightened. Compose yourself, my dear. You are just as safe from him as if he was in prison. He will never come back to bother us, after being kicked out the house by the servant and hunted off the land by the dogs!” said the commodore, laying his hand tenderly on the head of the excited woman, who had not for one instant ceased to rave. But she dashed it off, fiercely exclaiming: “Oh, you cruel, ruthless, remorseless man! I feared you would do so! I feared you would! _That’s why I never told you!_ Why he could never persuade me to tell you, you wicked, vindictive man——” “She is hysterical, she does not know what she says,” said the widow, while Emolyn continued to rave in growing excitement. “She is delirious, quite so! I wish Willet would return,” sighed the commodore. “I am _not_ delirious! It is _you_ who are mad with hatred and revenge—unnatural, monstrous hatred and revenge, after all these years! Go bring him back! If he had been the prodigal son, you should have received him! But he was no prodigal! Not even a prodigal! And you turned him out! You hunted him off! Go bring him back! Go bring him back if you wish to escape perdition!” she continued to cry in what seemed to her attendants a frenzy of insanity.