“I don’t care who she is as long as she’s my wife.” But she could not salve her conscience with the answer; she knew he would care. “Once we’re out of this, and I’ve settled with her delightful friends down there”--with a motion of his head toward the harbor. “You can’t settle with him!” said Andria quickly. “Do you mean you are going to meet them in the morning?” “I fail to see any other way,” he replied, laughing. “Why?” “Do you know what facing them would mean?” There was an indescribable flatness in her voice. “None of us would ever get away from the island, except perhaps Beryl, and what would become of her I know better than you.” “He wouldn’t marry her against her will,” he said shortly. “And as for carrying her off, he couldn’t keep her. There is a law in England.” “There’s no law for the dead--I mean you and I could never rescue her, for we--they would never let us leave this island alive! You, because you love the girl; I because----” but she could not go on, and he knew well enough that a deserted and discarded woman would get short rope from Raimond Erle. She was right, of course; an open struggle would be madness. Erle and Erceldonne he might manage, but the yacht’s crew could easily overpower a man who had no revolver. And yet he ached to try the fight. Andria looked at him, with hot, smarting eyes. “Twenty to one,” she said slowly. “Three of them you might account for, with my dagger, and then you would tell no tales! And Beryl, married to Raimond, would kill herself.” “What else can I do?” “Go away,” she said very gently. “No, don’t look like that!” for he was staring at her as if she had lost her senses. “You think I would play into Raimond’s hands if you did? You don’t know women! If he had loved me still I might have been his willing tool, I’m bad enough for that. But now”--her voice sank to an ugly whisper--“I’m all hatred for him; when I think of him I burn like fire. I only live to thwart him, to pay some of an old score. Oh! talk of something else!” she cried, with a sudden wild outbreak. “It is nothing to you that I wake at night and long to kill him with my hands.” Heriot turned his eyes away from her ashy face. Once he would have laughed at believing in that Andria Erle whose name had been a byword, but he trusted her now. If he had trusted her before this night all might have been safely away by this time. But as it was he knew her broken heart and her broken pride would fight a better battle for the girl he loved than all his strength could do. “What do you want me to do?” he asked. “You have a plan?” Andria nodded. “I want you to go and find a village and get a boat. You are the only one who can do it. But you must go alone, for if you took Beryl and me, even if we reached a town Egerton’s steamer would be there before us and cut us off. He knows every inch of the island. He’d guess where we were going--that is, if there’s a town to get at, as Salome says.”