Then, as he put her ashore in the dinghy he said that, of course, she would tell her brother that he was willing to come to terms. "That is," he explained, "to go halves. Which halves mean that I am looking after your interests, you know, and----" "Pray, pray," she interposed, "do not let us even think of such things now. If I have misjudged him, as I hope most earnestly I have, then there will be time to talk about shares and so forth. If I have read him aright----" but here she broke off with a little shiver, and, holding out her hand to him as they stood on the river's brink, wished him "Good-night." "Good-night!" he exclaimed. "Good-night! Why, surely, I may accompany you part of the way at least? I always do so when we are any distance from your home." "No," she answered, "no. Go back at once to your yacht. At once, I say, and get on board her. Oh! if you did but know the terror I am in for your safety." "Barbara!" he exclaimed. "Barbara! Why! it is a dream, a fantasy----" "No," she said, "no. It is no dream, no fantasy. For my sake, for my sake, I beseech you--go back and make yourself secure. Believe me, I know him!" and she turned as though to run up the slight ascent. "For your sake, then, I will," he said. "For your sake. We will meet to-morrow. Good-night, Barbara." Then he suddenly asked, anxiously--"But you--there is no danger to you?" "No! no! Good-night," she said, "God keep you. Oh! this dread is terrible," and then, giving him a sign to go without further loss of time, she sped up the path. He did not share at all in Barbara's dread of her brother, perhaps because he was a man, and, perhaps, also, because he had not been used to witnessing years of violence on that brother's part; indeed, he believed her terrors to be purely feminine--the terrors that many women feel in all parts of the world for that worst of despots, the domestic tyrant. But being neither vain nor conceited, he did not for one moment associate those terrors with any regard she had allowed herself to conceive for him, nor, thereby, make allowances for them in that way. Indeed, he had very little idea that she regarded him as anything more than a stranger, who, by the peculiar knowledge he possessed of the buried wealth, was far more interesting than the few tourists were who sometimes visited Coffin Island. Yet he forgot she allowed him to call her Barbara, while always herself addressing him with formality.