"It is not a pleasant subject. They were talking about that paragraph in the papers again. Of course there is nothing in the story, and yet it is very strange. May I speak of it?"
"Is it of any use?" asked Mrs. Darche, beginning to suspect what was coming.
"I hardly know," Brett answered, "and yet if it should turn out there is even the smallest grain of truth—"
"There cannot be. I know there cannot be," she repeated, after a moment's pause, as though she had gone over the whole question in the interval. "Oh, what is the use of suggesting such things?"
"Yes," answered Brett. "You know there cannot be any truth in it—even if he were alive he would not come back. I know it, and yet if he should, it would be so horrible that I cannot help thinking of it. You know what it would mean if that man were to return."
"I know what it would mean to me. Do not speak of it, please."
"I must, I cannot help it. I feel as if something were driving me to speak. You did not hear the whole story. They said the man was picked up in mid-channel by an Italian ship more than seven months ago."
"Seven months ago!"
"Even the time would fit the truth. But then—stop. Was he a swimmer? Yes—of course—I remember him at Newport." Brett answered his own question. "The ship—a bark they called it—was outward bound, and could not put in again. She was on her way to Valparaiso. You know where that is, all the way round by the Straits of Magellan. Something happened to her, she got wrecked or something—they say that a lot of the crew were killed and eaten up by the cannibals in Terra del Fuego. John Drake—"
"John Drake!" Marion exclaimed.