In the cabin that evening at dinner, when the two of them deigned to take polite cognizance of my existence, I announced to Joyce that I proposed to hug the island pretty close during the night.  It would save considerable time.

“Just as you like, Captain,” Joyce replied, indifferently.

“We may get a shower of ashes by doing so, if the wind should shift.”  I looked across the table at Mrs. Joyce.

“But we shall reach Malduna that much sooner?” she queried.

I nodded.  “However, if you feel any uneasiness, I’ll give the island a wide berth.”  I didn’t like the idea of dragging her—­the bride of a week—­past that place with its unspeakable memories, if it should really distress her.

Her eyes thanked me silently across the table.  “It’s very kind of you, but”—­she chose her words with significant deliberation—­“I haven’t a fear in the world, Mr. Barnaby.”

Evening had fallen when we came up on deck.  Joyce bethought himself of some cigars in his stateroom and went back.  For the moment I was alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to prick through the darkening sky.  The Sylph was running smoothly, with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the silence that lay like a benediction upon the sea.

“You may think it unfeeling of me,” she began, quite abruptly, “but all this past trouble of mine, now that it is ended, I have completely dismissed.  Already it begins to seem like a horrid dream.  And as for that island”—­her eyes looked off toward Muloa now impending upon us and lighting up the heavens with its sullen flare—­ “it seems incredible that I ever set foot upon it.

“Perhaps you understand,” she went on, after a pause, “that I have not told my husband.  But I have not deceived him.  He knows that I was once married, and that the man is no longer living.  He does not wish to know more.  Of course he is aware that Uncle Geoffrey came out here to—­to see a Mr. Leavitt, a matter which he has no idea concerned me.  He thanks the stars for whatever it was that did bring us out here, for otherwise he would not have met me.”

“It has turned out most happily,” I murmured.

“It was almost disaster.  After meeting Mr. Joyce—­and I was weak enough to let myself become engaged—­to have discovered that I was still chained to a living creature like that....  I should have killed myself.”

“But surely the courts—­”

She shook her head with decision.  “My church does not recognize that sort of freedom.”