Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/210

  courtesy—every hospitality? Yet you have heard his insults. Evidently he came aboard because he was anxious to be rid of the Countess.' (It is my private belief, Doctor, that the scoundrel had some design of selling her back to her husband.) 'He has taxed my forbearance excessively'

What shall you do with him?' I inquired.

"He shrugged his shoulders and made a wave of the hand. 'I do not know—that is immaterial; the important thing is to secure my wife. Is it too much to ask you to go in and look for her, my dear Doctor!'

"I went in, of course, but in the meantime she had learned that Stewart had gone off to the schooner, and, fearing violence for him at the hands of her husband, she had gone out herself. When I returned the situation was interesting. Madame was confined to her room in a state of frantic and screaming defiance; Stewart was double-ironed in the, and, although I did not see him again, I learned afterwards that he had not been over [ 194 ]