“Your wife is right,” he said gravely. “If poor Bob is dead, you are guilty of his death in the sight of God.”
“But he isn’t dead! It’s all a false alarm. I’ll get my boat and row over to the island myself. Very likely he had gone to sleep among the bushes and that prevented your seeing him.”
There was a bare possibility of this, but Ben Bence had little faith in it.
“Go, if you like,” he said. “If you find him, it will lift a great weight from your conscience.”
John Trafton dashed to the shore, flung himself into his boat, and, with feverish haste, began to row toward the island. He bitterly repented now the act which had involved him in such grave responsibility.
He was perfectly sober, for his credit at the tavern was temporarily exhausted.
Of course those who remained behind in the cabin had no hope of Robert being found. They were forced to believe that the raft had gone to pieces and the poor boy, in his efforts to reach the shore, had been swept back into the ocean by the treacherous undertow and was now lying stiff and stark at the bottom of the sea.
“What shall I ever do without Robert?” said Mrs. Trafton, her defiant mood changing, at her husband’s departure, to an outburst of grief. “He was all I had to live for.”
“You have your husband,” suggested Ben Bence doubtfully.
“My husband!” she repeated drearily. “You know how little company he is for me and how little he does to make me comfortable and happy. I will never forgive him for this day’s work.”