"What _shall_ I do with her?" he asked himself, in a sort of consternation. "I must keep her here until I get my affairs settled, and that will be a week at the soonest. If we were safely _en route_ for Havana, I should cease to fear. How will she receive me, I wonder?" He tapped softly at the door. There was no response. The silence of the grave reigned all through the lonely old house. He tapped again. Still no answer. "Mollie!" he called. There was no reply. The next moment he had inserted the key, turned it, and opened the prison door. Dr. Oleander paused on the threshold and took in the picture. He could see the low-lying, sunless afternoon sky, all gray and cheerless; the gray, complaining sea creeping up on the greasy shingle; the desolate expanse of road; the tongue of marshland; the strip of black pine woods--all that could be seen from the window. The prison-room looked drear and bleak; the fire on the hearth was smoldering away to black ashes; the untasted meal stood on the table. Seated by the window, in a drooping, spiritless way, as if never caring to stir again, sat bright Mollie, the ghost of her former self. Wan as a spirit, thin as a shadow, the sparkle gone from her blue eyes, the golden glimmer from the yellow hair, she sat there with folded hands and weary, hopeless eyes that never left the desolate sea. Not imprisonment, not the desolation of the prospect, not the loneliness, not the fasting had wrought the change, but the knowledge that she was this man's wife. Dr. Oleander had ample time to stand there and view the scene. She never stirred. If she heard the door open, she made no more sign than if she were stone deaf. "Mollie!" he called, advancing a step. At the sound of that hated voice she gave a violent start, a faint, startled cry, and, turning for the first time, eyed him like a wild animal at bay. "Mollie, my poor little girl," he said in a voice of real pity, "you are gone to a shadow! I never thought a few days' confinement could work such a change." She never spoke; she sat breathing hard and audibly, and eying him with wild, wide eyes. "You mustn't give way like this, Mollie; you mustn't really, you know. It will not be for long. I mean to take you away from here. Very soon we will go to Cuba, and then my whole life will be devoted to you. No slave will serve his mistress as I will you." He drew nearer as he spoke. Quick as lightning her hand sought her breast, and the blue gleam of the dagger dazzled his eyes. "One step nearer," she hissed, between set, glistening teeth, "and I'll bury it in your heart or my own!" She raised it with a gesture grand and terrible, and rising slowly from her seat, confronted him like a little tigress. "Mollie," he said, imploringly, "listen to me--your husband!" Her white teeth locked together with a clinching noise; she stood there like a pale little fury.