A new fear assailed her. “Perhaps,” she whispered, “the ship he sailed in was wrecked.”
“That is not probable,” said her friend. “Mr. Holdfast, as a man of the world and a gentleman of means, undoubtedly took passage in a fast steamer. In all human probability your husband landed at Liverpool within nine or ten days of his departure from New York.”
“And then?” asked Mrs. Holdfast.
“Who can say what happened to him them? It is, of course, certain that his desire was to come to you without delay.”
“He would not have lingered an hour,” said Mrs. Holdfast. “An hour! He would not have lingered a moment. He would be only too eager, too anxious, to rejoin me. And there was another motive for his impatience—his child, whose face he has never seen, whose lips he has never kissed! Unhappy woman that I am!”
Her friend waited until she had somewhat mastered her grief, and then he asked her a question which opened up another channel for fear.
“Was your husband in the habit of carrying much money about with him?”
“A large sum; always a large sum. He often had as much as a thousand pounds in notes in his pocket-book.”
“It was injudicious.”