Her dusky hair was dressed like Andria’s, her golden-tawny eyes shone serene in her pale face; even the crimson of her lips was brighter. For the first time in all her miserable young life she was happy. As a child, she had worshiped Andria Heathcote, and to be alone with the only human being she had never feared or deceived was rapture to her; even in this lonely island, with not a creature but themselves and the black servants. The drawing-room looked wonderfully homelike, with its open piano and comfortable tea-table, to the two who were so strangely met after five years. “Andria,” Beryl said, drawing a long breath and clasping her thin young arms round her knees, “why are you so quiet? Why aren’t you like me, ready to dance because you’re free? Free--but you can’t know what it is to me!” “‘Free among the dead,’” quoted the elder woman softly under her breath, but Beryl’s ears were good. “What do you mean?”--looking up from her low seat with eyes like wells of golden light. Andria rose, and opened the two doors of the room. There was not a soul in sight, and from somewhere she could hear the servants talking over their tea. “Beryl, how brave are you?” She had shut the doors softly and come very close, so that her voice was but a whisper. “I don’t know!” said Beryl, startled. “Rough words--Mother Felicitas--always made me a coward. But there are neither here.” “There’s something. I don’t know what. Listen”--Andria’s voice was suddenly protecting, motherly--“and don’t speak loud! You heard Mr. Egerton warn us not to go out after dark on the verandas, or use that path. Well, there is some reason, I can’t tell what. I heard him talking to Salome, and I know the place isn’t safe. And he knew it when he brought us here.” “He only said we’d get fever if we went out after sunset. If he wanted us to, he wouldn’t have warned us,” said Beryl sensibly. “I know! But----” The shrewd reason of Salome’s “might as well kill ’em as scare ’em to death” came back to her. She must not fill the girl with fear like her own--only she wished she had not overheard that talk about accidents! She began to walk up and down the room restlessly. “I can’t see why he brought us here!” she cried, but guardedly. “What reason could he have? Think, Beryl, why do you imagine he ever took you away from that Fuller woman? What did he say?” “Nothing; but that she was too poor to be able to afford to be kind.” “Do you think he knows anything about you--is anything to you?” “No, but kind as he has been, I can’t like him.” “Why did he pretend to bring us to Bermuda, and leave us in a place like this? That is what puzzles me. I would think he knew something of you; wanted to hide you away safely, if----” she broke off. It was no use to say “if I didn’t feel that this was a dangerous place, and that he deceives us about it because he didn’t want us even to know where he had taken us.” “What do you mean?” said Beryl, staring. “Isn’t this Bermuda?”