“Thank you! Thank you both,” she murmured. “I can’t find words now, but—the others! Were any of them——?” Her lips moved, but no sound followed.
Howard bowed his head, but he answered unflinchingly—better the clean, sharp cut of certainty than dragging suspense.
“You were the only one in your boat who was saved,” he answered quietly. “I know nothing of the other boats.”
The girl covered her face with her hands. “Oh, poor people!” she moaned. “Poor, poor people!” Then she dashed the tears from her eyes and dragged herself to her feet, holding fast to the back of the sofa.
“I am Miss Dorothy Fairfax,” she said, with a pretty access of dignity. “And you?” Her eye traveled from one man to the other.
If Howard hesitated, it was for so short a time that it passed unobserved.
“This is Detective Jackson, of the New York police,” he answered steadily, “and I am Frank Howard, his prisoner.”
“Frank Howard! Not—not——”
“Yes.”
“My God!” For the first time in her life, Dorothy Fairfax fainted dead away.