"But," continued Nita smilingly, "now I come to the best part of my dream. Very suddenly--and, oh! the gladness of that moment--the wild storm lulled, the thunder, lightning, and rain ceased, the black clouds parted overhead and silvery moonrays glimmered through. I seemed to hear your voice cry out in joy; then my nerves relaxed, my senses reeled, I seemed to fall from a dizzy height into the darkness of death. Oh, Lizette, how real and vivid it seems to me--those moments or hours of deadly peril in the dark sea, yet you say it was only a dream." Lizette smoothed the wavy tresses back from the girl's brow with a trembling hand and answered gently: "My dear young mistress, you seem so much better that I will not deceive you. It was no dream--it was terrible reality." "How, Lizette? No dream? Then we were rescued by the people on the yacht after all. Thank Heaven! But Dorian, my Dorian, why does he not come to me?" "Yes, we were rescued, Miss Nita, the moment you became unconscious. Just as the moon's ray pierced the gloom some yachtsmen near by saw us struggling in the water. They quickly rescued us, but the doctor on the yacht worked over you an hour before you showed any signs of life. Since then you have been ill and knew no one till now." "How long, Lizette?" "Oh, several days, miss," evasively. "And I did not even recognize Dorian! How very, very strange. Why, Lizette, was he so ill they could not let him come to me? And is he better now?" "Oh, of course he is better now." "Lizette, how strange your voice sounds. Is it possible---- But no, no! do not tell me my--husband--died of his wound, or I shall go mad with grief!" "He did not die, Miss Nita." "Then why does he not come to me?" And Nita made a movement as if to rise, but fell back upon the pillow exhausted. "Oh, my dear young lady, please calm yourself, please try to bear what I have to tell you. Mr. Mountcastle is all right--yes, indeed, I hope and believe he is all right, but it is impossible for him to come to you just now because----" She paused timorously. "Because----" the young bride echoed with piercing anxiety, and then the maid blurted out with a bitter, stifled sob: "Because it wasn't your husband's yacht that rescued us, but another man's. Oh, my dear, don't take it so to heart, please don't. Let us be thankful we are alive, and that some day you will be reunited to your dear husband again." There was a blank silence of such terrible despair that it could find no outlet. Then Nita asked in a low, sad voice: "Then, Lizette, where are we now?" "Oh, Miss Nita, can you bear it? The yacht that saved us brought us to a lonely island way up here in Fortune's Bay, hundreds of miles from New York." Again there was a blank silence of sorrow and disappointment. Nita's heart ached with the pain of this strange separation from her husband.