CHAPTER IX
MARY LOUISE TOUCHES BOTTOM
Circumstantial evidence was all against the Spokane. While nobody could say for certain that she had committed the unpardonable sin of going to the bottom, she could not prove an alibi. One day she had been sending out signals of distress by wireless and the next day, when a philanthropic vessel had endeavored to find her in the vicinity from which the appeals had come, there was not a trace of her. Others had joined in the search to no avail. She was finally given up for lost and the search was abandoned. Then and only then, did Dorfield awake to the fact that the popular Danny Dexter had been on the Spokane.
“Poor Mary Louise!” was heard on every side, and then often was added, “Well, thank goodness, she has plenty of money!”
It is strange how many persons seem to feel that plenty of money will soften any blow. Josie’s voice was the only one raised in complaint that Mary Louise would have been better off were she not so well off, but then even Elizabeth had to admit that Josie was a wee bit peculiar about worldly things. In spite of the fact that the astute Josie was practical and businesslike, she had an unworldly philosophy worthy of Diogenes. Like that old gentleman, she would have been perfectly happy with no habitation but a tub but she would have put the tub to more practical use than the ancient worthy is reported to have done.
The time had come for Irene to break the sad news to Mary Louise concerning her dear Danny. It took every bit of character the lame girl possessed to screw her courage up to the point of breaching the subject.
“It wouldn’t be so hard if I didn’t love her so much,” she said to herself, and then added, “but it is because I do love her so much that I am chosen to be the one to do it.”
Like all difficult things it was not so hard to do when once she had started. Dr. Coles had telephoned her that morning that he felt it was hardly fair to keep Mary Louise in ignorance any longer; and the evening before Bob Dulaney had come to tell her that all hope of the Spokane was given up, and that the storm on the Pacific in that particular region had raged so fiercely for several days that it was considered by those experienced in such matters utterly absurd to fancy for an instant that men in open boats could have escaped drowning.
Bob Dulaney was grief-stricken. He had been hoping against all reason that Danny had escaped.
“I just can’t believe it! Old Danny Dexter! Why, ‘Irene for all time,’ Danny was the livest person I ever knew—so alive that I simply can’t think of him as dead.”
“Irene for all time” was a name Bob had for Irene—just a little joke of their own brought about when he was introduced to her by Danny. He usually called her by that funny little title.