Now he was dead—the brave, generous man, whom Katharine had been taught to love like a father; and even while Thrasher told his own story, and her loving heart was almost given up to fond credulity, she was not quite satisfied that Rice might not have been saved. To leave him on the wreck even at his own request, seemed to her a terrible cruelty.
"He was my brother," she said; "the only support we had. He was so generous—so good to us both! Oh, Nelson, you should have saved him!"
"How did I know he was your brother, Katharine? He never told me a word about it; and if I ever heard the name, it had escaped me."
"But he was a human being; a mother waited for him, somewhere. You should have remembered that."
"It is useless talking in this way, Katharine," replied Thrasher, striving to pacify her grief. "I could only have saved him by violence. He would not come with us, but stuck to the wreck, under some wild idea that she might yet be taken into port. I could have died with him, but nothing beyond that was possible."
"Oh, my mother! my poor mother! must I tell her this?" moaned Katharine.
"Perhaps it would have pleased you better had I gone down with him?"
"You!—you! Oh, that would have completed our desolation! The news would have killed me dead!"
"Then don't attempt to make me out a murderer."
"I haven't—I haven't!"