that James Scarbridge had been his chum."

"Had been? He meant _is!_"

"Then it's true! Oh, isn't it strange and--and splendid? You know, I
did not connect the remark with you, Lord James. He had told me to try
to think how we were to find food for the next meal. His reference to
you was made quite casually in his talk with Winthrope."

"Winthrope!" exclaimed Lord James. "Then he, too, reached shore? Yet
if so--"

The girl put her hand before her eyes, as if to shut out some terrible
sight. Her voice sank to a whisper: "He--he was killed in the second
cyclone--a few days ago."

"Ah!" muttered the young earl. After a pause, he asked in a tone of
profound sympathy, "And the others--Lady Bayrose?"

"Don't ask! don't ask!" she cried, shuddering and trembling.

But quickly she regained her composure and looked up at him with a
calm unwavering gaze that told him how much she had undergone and the
strength of character she had gained during the fearful weeks that she
had been marooned on this savage and desolate coast.

"How foolish of me to give way!" she reproached herself. "It is what
you might have expected of me before--before I had been through all
this, with his example to uplift me out of my helplessness and
inefficiency. Believe me, Lord Avondale, I am a very different young