not to be dreamed of.
As yet he was too shaken to collect his thoughts. Anstruther's
proposal, however, helped him to blurt out what he intuitively felt to
be a disagreeable fact. Yet something must be said, for his brain
reeled.

"Your suggestion is admirable," he cried, striving desperately to
affect a careless complaisance. "The ship's stores may provide Iris
with some sort of rig-out, and an old friend of hers is on board at
this moment, little expecting her presence. Lord Ventnor has
accompanied me in my search. He will, of course, be delighted--"

Anstruther flushed a deep bronze, but Iris broke in--

"Father, why did _he_ come with you?"

Sir Arthur, driven into this sudden squall of explanation, became
dignified.

"Well, you see, my dear, under the circumstances, he felt an anxiety
almost commensurate with my own."

"But why, why?"

Iris was quite calm. With Robert near, she was courageous. Even the
perturbed baronet experienced a new sensation as his troubled glance
fell before her searching eyes. His daughter had left him a joyous,
heedless girl. He found her a woman, strong, self-reliant, purposeful.
Yet he kept on, choosing the most straightforward means as the only
honorable way of clearing a course so beset with unsuspected obstacles.

"It is only reasonable, Iris, that your affianced husband should suffer
an agony of apprehension on your account, and do all that was possible
to effect your rescue."

"My--affianced--husband?"

"Well, my dear girl, perhaps that is hardly the correct phrase from
your point of view. Yet you cannot fail to remember that Lord
Ventnor--"

"Father, dear," said Iris solemnly, but in a voice free from all
uncertainty, "my affianced husband stands here! We plighted our troth
at the very gate of death. It was ratified in the presence of God, and
has been blessed by Him. I have made no compact with Lord Ventnor. He
is a base and unworthy man. Did you but know the truth concerning him
you would not mention his name in the same breath with mine. Would he,
Robert?"

Never was man so perplexed as the unfortunate shipowner. In the instant
that his beloved daughter was restored to him out of the very depths of
the sea, he was asked either to undertake the role of a disappointed
and unforgiving parent, or sanction her marriage to a truculent-looking
person of most forbidding if otherwise manly appearance, who had
certainly saved her from death in ways not presently clear to