"Empty! What, moved?"
"Gone, both of them; God only knows where."
"Gone!"
"No one can tell me where. The house was shut up. The grass had grown high around the gate. The bucket from long disuse had dropped to pieces on the well-pole. This is all that I can gather of a certainty."
"And did the neighbors know nothing?"
"They told me a great deal, but it led to nothing; my wife really gave no one an idea of what she intended to do. I see how it is; she was very proud, and thinking herself compelled to work for a living went off into some strange place. It was like her, but where can I go, how search her out? She left no trace. Surely she might have waited a few months longer!"
The proud anguish in his friend's voice drew Rice from his own troubles.
"Come," he said, "I will turn back, and we will talk this over. Some way will be found. 'Never give up the ship.' That has been our motto for many a day, captain. The storm has burst on me, and it may reach you, but we'll sail in the same boat anyhow."
"But this suspense is terrible, Rice. Does it seem possible that a man should be made so wretched in a single day? But for this hard walk I should have gone crazy."
"I know what it is, captain; all my timbers are shaking now with what happened yesterday, but I've seen many a wreck come up shipshape again. Let's keep afore the breeze, if it does blow a gale. I feel sartin that our course lies the same way, somehow. Here, give us hold of your valise. You look clean tuckered out."