The Captain rose from his knees, still somewhat doubtfully, and came slowly round the table; approached Philip in gingerly fashion; and finally ventured to take one of his hands; squeezed it—squeezed it a little more. Then his face broke up into smiles, and he clapped Philip jovially on the shoulder. Remembering, however, the more serious part of the business, he darted to the window, and drew the curtain across it; then sat down, breathing hard, and staring at Philip with all his might. Finally, he got up, and came to Philip again, and shook hands with him, as though to assure himself that he was solid flesh and blood. “This comes of keepin’ bad company,” ejaculated the Captain at last. “You gits yerself in the river—an’ very bloated you looks, I do assure you—you gits into jail—an’ you likewise gits out of it; an’ you frightens a honest sailor-man (leastways—sailor-man retired; circus-man now)—you frightens him nearly out of ’is wits. But still—it’s good to see you again; an’, if the Missis can find us a drain o’ something’—jist a toothful apiece—we can talk over things comfortable-like.” It was just at this moment, as Mrs. Quist turned smilingly to get out bottles and glasses, that Philip discovered, to his consternation that little Clara Siggs, who had sat down on a sofa near him, was swaying to and fro, with a very white face, although she bravely tried to smile. He had just time to step forward, and catch her in his arms, when she gave a sort of gasp, and fainted dead away. Overwrought for so long, she had given way, now that the danger seemed over, and the tension relaxed. Bitterly blaming himself for having exposed her to such trials, he picked her up tenderly in his arms, and, guided by Mrs. Quist, carried her upstairs to her room. There, being assured by that good woman that it was nothing more serious than a sudden attack of faintness, Philip left her in charge of the girl, and rejoined the Captain in the room below. “One thing I must ask you, Captain,” he said when he was seated with that gentleman at the table—“and that is, in regard to your taking me for a ghost. What induced you to imagine I was anything but the Philip Crowdy whom you knew on the voyage from Australia?” On this, the Captain, with much detail, entered into a full account of the finding of the body of the unfortunate Dandy Chater by himself and Cripps; and, although he did not know, of course, the name of the latter, the description he gave, and his statement that he had seen the little man on the night of his invasion of the upper room at “The Three Watermen,” enabled Philip to identify the man who had been with him when the body was found. For the first time, too, he understood the reason for the Doctor’s consternation on meeting him in the garden of the Cottage.