“Your mother?”

“Yes, my mother.”

“If your mother be alive, it shall be my good office to bring mother and child together.”

“Never.”

“Why do you say never?”

“You are determined to go off on the yacht?”

“Yes, I shall go off on the yacht.”

“We will never meet again.”

“You take too gloomy a view of the situation.”

“I know well the character of the crew of the ‘Nancy.’”

“So do I.”

A deeper pallor overspread the girl’s face, as in a low, husky voice she whispered: 

“I believe they are leading you on.”

“Leading me on?”

“Yes.”

“I do not understand.”

“You say you are going off with them?”

“Yes.”

“They would not take a stranger off with them unless they had a purpose.”

The girl had offered a most startling suggestion.

“The circumstances are peculiar, Renie, and I am a good seaman.  I have already proved myself of service to them.”

“That does not alter my idea.”

“What’s your idea?”

“I have a suspicion.”

A moment’s silence followed, when the detective asked: 

“What do you suspect!”

“They have recognized you!”

CHAPTER XVII.

The few sharp quick words of the girl betrayed volumes.  Her suggestion was indeed startling; and, what was more; there was not only a possibility, but a probability that her suspicion was correct.

A silence followed her words, but at length the detective said: 

“I shall go off on the yacht, Renie.”

“And you will never return!”

“Yes, I shall return.”

“Suppose my suspicion is correct, and those men are leading you on?”

“It matters not, Renie, I shall go!”

“Are you madly seeking death?”

“No.”

“If those men have recognized you, and are playing a part, there will be no chance for you the moment that yacht crosses the bar on her way out to sea.”

The detective on the impulse of the moment, was prompted to ask: 

“Suppose they kill me, what will you do, Renie?”

The girl was silent until the detective repeated his question.

“I know what I shall do!”

“What will you do?”

“Roam the beach until all hope of the recovery of your body is passed and then I shall lie down and die.”  She spoke in a weird, despairing tone.

“And you have known me but a few hours.”

“Yes, I have known you to speak to you but a few hours, and yet I have come to believe that all the dreams of my life center in you.”

The young man advanced and seized the girl’s hand; the latter made no effort to withdraw it from his firm grasp.

“Renie,” he said, “you need have no fear, I am not destined to die at the hands of the smugglers.  I am assigned to a certain duty, the opportunity to fulfill my mission is now presented.  I shall go on the yacht to-night, but when she returns I will return with her!”