Dorothy accepted the explanation, but her heart beat anxiously. Nor was her anxiety lessened by Captain Forbes’s attitude. Had she not been warned of his probable designs, she might have passed over his behavior as merely the would-be gallantry of an uncultivated man, and even then would have found it sufficiently offensive. But, in view of all she had been told, its import quickly became portentous. Between extravagant compliments, often so pointed as to cause her considerable embarrassment, Forbes sandwiched encomiums of the life on the wreckage, for support of which he appealed to Mother Joyce, declaring that Dorothy would soon submit to the inevitable, and settle down to remain there for life. All suggestions as to the possibility of escape he pushed aside. “Our known history of life here goes back for more than fifty years,” he declared, “and in that time nobody has escaped. Nobody ever will. It’s impossible. You will fight against the idea for awhile, and then settle down to enjoy yourself.” “Enjoy myself!” “Why not? We have everything here that any one needs--all the necessaries, and far more of the luxuries than any except a very few favored people enjoy anywhere. We have a storehouse full of everything that delights a woman, and if it was destroyed to-morrow, we could easily fill it again. Duplicates of all its contents will drift in to us again sooner or later on some ship. Ask what you will, and it will be my delight to lay it at your feet.” Dorothy tried to smile. “Very well, then,” she particularized, “just give me a telegraph-office.” “With pleasure. We have a complete outfit. I’m sorry to say, though, that the wires are not strung yet.” “Then give me a boat and a--compass, isn’t it, that we need?” “Those are about the only things we cannot furnish, Miss Fairfax. When sailors are forced to leave their ships, they invariably take the boats and the compasses with them. But why do you wish to leave us? It will be our constant study to make you happy. You shall have the best of everything, and your lightest wish shall be law.” “My only wish is to get back to dry land. If my wish is law, help me to do so.” “I cannot! And I would not if I could. I have waited long for a woman as fair and sweet as you to drift in to me, and now that you have come, I will not give you up lightly. The wrecks and their contents are ours by right of salvage. You, too, are salvage--and the fairest salvage I have ever known.” This was forcing the game with a vengeance. Dorothy’s lip quivered, and she cast a frightened glance at Mother Joyce. But that lady was eating her supper stolidly, and made no sign. Evidently, for the moment at least, she intended to let Dorothy play her own hand. Forbes continued: “No, you are here for life, Miss Fairfax. I regret it for your sake, but I rejoice in it for my own. You are here for life, and you must make up your mind to it, choose a husband, and settle down.” “I shall never marry.”