The place was clean, fresh and light, but had no furniture except one narrow iron bedstead with a mattress, a pillow and a white spread as clean as the room. Extended on the mattress lay the young and handsome form of Roland Bayard, clothed only in his white shirt and gray trousers. His hands were clasped above his head and his eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling. He started up on hearing the visitor enter. “Roland! Roland! My dear boy, Roland!” cried the old skipper, in a tremulous voice, while the tears started to his eyes. If the two had been French or German, they would have fallen into each other’s arms. Being Americans of English descent, they only clasped hands a little more firmly than usual, gazed into each other’s eyes earnestly for a moment, and then sat down on the side of the bed together in silence. The old skipper at length spoke: “Roland, my dear, dear boy, how is this?” “How is—what?” inquired the young man, slowly, and after a pause, speaking in a tone of pain in his hesitating voice, and with a look of pain in his haggard eyes that could not be concealed. “Oh, you know. Dear lad, you know! You know what I mean! How is that I find you here a prisoner, instead of a free man? Why did you not tell Le that you were a captive among the pirates, not a confederate of them? Le could have corroborated your story and you would have been brought home in honor, not in this way!” “Le could have done nothing for me, under the circumstances!” replied the young man, in a tone so full of despair that the old skipper looked at him in horror. “Circumstances, Roland? What circumstances? That devil, Silver, told me he had persuaded you to join his band. But he never told the truth! Surely, surely, Roland, he never told the truth! You never joined the pirate crew! Why do I ask? Of course you never did, and never could!” said the captain, speaking with great assurance, but—looking anxiously into the face of his favorite for confirmation of his words. No such confirmation came. Roland put up his hand and covered his eyes; he could not bear to meet that anxious, eager gaze of his old friend. “Roland, my dear lad, to what circumstances do you allude? Roland, for my sake—for all our sakes—for—for—little Rosemary’s sake, explain yourself!” The young man kept his eyes covered and his head bowed, while his whole frame shook as with an ague fit. The old skipper saw the effect of his words, and repeated them: “For little Rosemary’s sake, dear lad!” “Don’t! don’t!” wailed Roland. “Don’t! don’t! I loved the child! Heaven knows how I loved her! She was always the dearest creature on earth to me! I loved her so much that I hope, in these three years of absence, in which she has grown from childhood to womanhood, I hope she has forgotten me!” These last words were uttered in a wail of anguish.