only one thing left, for which he would fain have endured a few hours longer, and no one could give him the assurance that this thing he yearned for was coming close and closer to him with every vibration of the screw that drove the Guernsey boat with its freight of passengers nearer and nearer to its destination. CHAPTER XXIV. BY F. ANSTEY. “WHOM THE GODS HATE DIE HARD.” It seemed that the doctor was right after all; Frank Onslow was feeling better, distinctly, undeniably better, as he lay on the chintz couch in the little sitting room of the rose-hung cottage at Guernsey. The pain about the region of the heart had entirely disappeared under skilled medical treatment; not for many a day had he felt more vigorous and hopeful, reclining there with his eyes fixed upon the door in momentary expectation that it would open and admit the slight girlish form of the wife from whom he had been so long and cruelly separated. Yes, Fenella was on her way to him, he would see her, hold her in his arms! There might be years of happiness yet in store for them--in which to atone, to forget. Surely the boat must have arrived by this time! What was that sound? He had not deceived himself; there _was_ a light step on the gravel outside. She had come, she was here, in another instant she would be at his side! The door was gently opened, he rose to his feet with a smothered cry of joy, rose--and the next instant sat down again heavily, with a groan of irrepressible disappointment. For the woman who stood there, dazzling yet in her faded southern beauty, was not Fenella; it was Lucille de Vigny, whom, as he fondly imagined, he had last beheld drowning in the blue-green waves, clasped in the fierce embrace of her injured and revengeful husband, the blade of whose dagger was deeply embedded in her bosom. The shock of the surprise was considerable; it was some time before he could recover sufficiently to express himself in appropriate terms. “Witch, demoness, arch-fiend that you are!” he groaned, “how came you here? Has the sea given you up once more?” “Ah, Frank!” she said, with a soft musical accent of reproach, “I did not expect that question (to say nothing of the form in which it was put) from you of _all_ men. Who should know how I escaped what seemed a well-nigh inevitable doom, if not the man who preserved my life?” “I--_I_ preserve your life?” gasped Onslow, in a bewilderment which, under the circumstances, was not unnatural.