Zillah was the first to speak. "You saved me from a fearful fate," she said, in low and tremulous tones. "I heard all about it." Windham said nothing, but bowed in silence. Zillah rose from her chair, and advanced toward him, her face expressing strong emotion. Now he saw, for the first time, her wondrous eyes, in all their magnificence of beauty, with their deep unfathomable meaning, and their burning intensity of gaze. On the schooner, while her head lay on his breast, those eyes were closed in senselessness--now they were fixed on his. "Will you let me thank you, Sir," she said, in a voice which thrilled through him in musical vibrations, "for my _life_, which you snatched from a death of horror? To thank you, is but a cold act. Believe me, you have my everlasting gratitude." She held out her hand to Windham. He took it in both of his, and reverentially raised it to his lips. A heavy sigh burst from him, and he let it fall. "Miss Lorton," said he, in his deep musical voice, which now trembled with an agitation to which he was unused, "if I have been the means of saving you from any evil, my own joy is so great that no thanks are needed from you: or, rather, all thankfulness ought to belong to me." A deep flush overspread Zillah's face. Her large dark eyes for a moment seemed to read his inmost soul. Then she looked down in silence. As for Windham, he turned away with something like abruptness, and left her with Obed Chute. CHAPTER XXXI. THE PREFECT OF POLICE. Obed Chute had requested his business agents, Messrs. Bourdonnais Frères, to obtain a suitable place for his family on their arrival. He went first to their office, and learned that the family were then in Marseilles, and received their address. He then went immediately for Zillah, and brought her with him. The family consisted of two small girls, aged respectively eight and ten, two maids, a nurse, and a valet or courier, or both combined. A sister of Obed's had the responsibility of the party.