Toward midnight, the girl lying wakeful in the after cabin heard a tap at the door.

“Betty, are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be frightened, but I think there may be a little excitement out here pretty soon.”

“What is it?”

“Some of the ‘swampers’ up to a bit of thieving, I fancy.”

“I’ll be out in a moment, Bob White.”

She found him, clad only in shirt and trousers, leaning against the side of the cabin, and staring shoreward. She divined his frank smile, and smiled in return.

“Thieves?” she asked in a whisper.

“I’m almost sure of it,” he answered in the same tone. “I heard a boat bump against the side of the Wisp a few minutes ago. I think they were drifting down with the tide to reconnoitre, and were swept in closer than they had expected to be.”

“Have you a pistol?”

“On the locker there. Lucky Danton lent me one of his. You aren’t afraid?”

“Not—with you.”

“I dare say they won’t come back. Listen now! See if you can make out anything to starboard. I’ll watch on this side.”

The night was very dark. The stars were obscured by light clouds, nor was there a moon visible. Their eyes could penetrate the darkness little farther than the rails where a whitish mist hid the surface of the water.

Betty gazed intently. A sidelong glance showed her Fessenden kneeling on the locker opposite her, his half-bared arms folded on his chest. His powerful form gave her a comforting sense of protection. She stared again to starboard.

From the mist two great hands gripped the rail of the sloop! Then a face—the face of a negro—rose into view, a knife gripped in his teeth. So impossible, so barbaric, did the apparition seem, that for a long breath Betty stared spell-bound.

Then her scream whirled Fessenden about. He crossed the cockpit at a bound, and struck savagely at the negro’s jaw. The latter ducked with the skill of a trained boxer. Throwing up a hand, he caught the other by the throat, dragging him forward.

Fessenden struck again, grappled with his antagonist, tottered, and plunged headforemost over the rail upon him. Both went down struggling wildly.

Betty snatched up the revolver, hardly knowing what she did, and stared down upon the boiling water.

Fessenden’s ghastly face, his groping fingers, his throat from which stood up the handle of the recking knife! The possibility of these things strained her mind to the breaking point. A horror of what the loss of him would mean to her drew a piercing cry:

“Bob White! Oh, Bob White!”

As if summoned by the sound, the two men rose into view—a yard apart. Betty fired on the instant. The shot went wild, but the negro, for the first time aware that firearms were at hand, dived deep. They saw him but once again, his head a black spot in the mist as he swam frenziedly for his drifting punt.

Her shaking hands helped Fessenden over the rail.

“You—that dreadful knife!—you aren’t hurt?”

“I knocked that out of his mouth the first thing. A couple of teeth along with it! But the fellow can swim like an alligator—he would have drowned me at his leisure, if you hadn’t fired. Thank you, child.” He patted her shoulder. “The row must have been rather rough on you.”

“It doesn’t matter—so long as you’re safe.”

“It’s all right. Well, that ‘swamper’ won’t bother us any more to-night, I’ll swear—so I’ll get out of these wet togs. Lucky they’re the flannels I borrowed from Danton.”

She reached both hands to his dripping shoulders. “Tom! Tom! I want to talk to you.” She was laughing, yet half in tears. “Oh, it’s ridiculous—it’s pitiful to think we are husband and wife, and—and you don’t even know my real name.”

He stared down at her. A slow tremor shook him. “Then you admit—that I don’t?”

“I know you don’t, you—you silly boy! Go and change your clothes. Then come back and talk to me. Come soon!”

In a wonderfully short time he rejoined her. Only his damp hair showed his late struggle with the robber, but his very quietness betrayed his emotion.

She was awaiting him on the cushioned locker, a lighted reading-lamp beside her.

“Sit down here,” she said. “Close! You needn’t be afraid of me. I—oh, I’ve a hundred things to say to you!”

“Good. It was thoughtful of you to bring out that lamp. I can see your face better while you talk.”

“And I yours—you dear boy.”

“Betty! Be careful what you say. I’ve got myself pretty well in hand, but I can’t stand much of that sort of thing.”

She laughed deliriously. “I brought the lamp to let you read something.” She produced an official-looking document. “Look at this. Do you know what it is?”

He peered at it. “No-o. Yes, of course. It’s our marriage certificate, isn’t it?”

“It is. Mr. Thomas Fessenden, do you realize that you signed that document some twelve hours ago and didn’t even read the name just above your own?”

“Above mine? That must be your name, Betty!”

“Of course, silly boy. But you haven’t yet seen it. You were so excited that you may have married an Abiatha Prudence or a Mary Ann, for all you know.”

He gave her a penetrating glance, then snatched up the lamp and held it so that its rays fell full upon the certificate.

Just above his own signature was another in a feminine hand: “Roland Elizabeth Cary.”

He repeated it stupidly, “Roland Elizabeth Cary.”

She nodded, blushing hotly.

“You?”

“Yes—please.”

“Not Landis?”

“She was my old nurse. I’ve always called her Aunty Landis.”

“Roland Cary that they all talked about! Not a man, but you?”

“Are you awfully disappointed? I was named after my great-uncle, General Roland Cary.”

“Great Scott! Polly Cresap said Roland Cary was charming. Mrs. Dick Randall told me that he—no, that Roland Cary was a ‘dee-vil.’ Cresap quite raved over—over Roland Cary. I’ve been as blind as an owl!”

“It was wicked of me to fool you so long, but it was such a joke. All my cousins always call me Roland Cary, as if it were my only name.”

“Then you’re Elizabeth Cary—the Miss Cary of Baltimore that people made such a fuss about when you came out last year—‘the’ Cary of ‘the’ Carys?”

“I suppose I am.”

“I hope you’ll give me credit for never believing that you were an ordinary person.”

“Yes, I do.”

“But why did you do it—masquerade in the Landis farmhouse? I remember somebody said ‘Roland Cary’ had ‘notions.’”

“I did it to be near a friend—to have a chance to shelter a friend without attracting notice. A woman—the Other—the one that Charlie Danton—”

“O-oh! It must have been she Cleborne saw at the window—and I thought he was warning me about you!”

“I kept her out of harm’s way—really in hiding. I didn’t know how it would all end, but it did end perfectly.”

“You mean that Madge Yarnell ran away with Charlie Danton, and solved the problem?”

“Not only that. The very night before our elopement—yours and mine—she received a letter, a dear letter, from her husband. They’d been on the point of making it up for weeks. You see, nothing impossible had occurred.”

“I see.”

He had put down the lamp so suddenly that the light had flickered out. The mist was gone, and the velvety blackness stretched unbroken from shore to shore. Far down the sound, the red rim of the moon was rising from the water.

“Child,” he said, “for a young woman of your position you have married in a very reckless and off-hand way.”

“I knew you were—real. I knew I could trust you.”

He gave a short laugh. “Thank you. But if we’re going up and down this weary world in—in this fashion, forever, I think I’ll soon begin to wish that the ‘swamper’ had put his knife into my heart.”

She caught him tenderly by the chin. “Oh, Bob White! If you had never come back to me—out of that black water!”

He trembled from head to foot. “Betty!”

“I know—I know. Dear—will you kiss me?”

“For God’s sake, Betty! You don’t know what you’re saying. After all, we’re husband and wife—a kiss between you and me can’t be play any longer. It means—it must mean—everything.”

She leaned toward him, her eyes exquisitely tender.

“I know, dear,” she said. “Must I ask you again? Will—will you kiss me?”