"You must not let your mother know about the shipwreck," she said.
"But I cannot keep the newspapers from mother, and every newspaper is full of it," I replied; "surely, Jane, surely—oh, you cannot mean it—no person that we know was on board?"
"I have a great fear over me," she answered.
I clutched her arm, and looked into her face with wild eyes. My own brain seemed to reel, my heart beat almost to suffocation, then I became quiet. With a mighty effort I controlled myself.
"Surely," I said, "surely."
"His name is not mentioned amongst the list of passengers, that is my one comfort; but it is quite possible, on the other hand, that he may have gone on board at Adelaide," she continued, "for I know he had business close to Adelaide, he told me so. If that was the case they might not have entered his name in the ship's list of passengers, and—oh, I have a great, a terrible fear over me, his silence, and now this. Yes, child, it is true, he was, if all had gone well, to be on his way home about now; but he has never written, and now this shipwreck. I am more anxious, far more anxious than I can say."
That night I did not sleep at all. Thoughts of Jim Randolph filled my mind to the exclusion of all hope of repose. Was he really drowned? Had he left the world? Was I never to see his face again? There was a cry at my heart, and an ache there which ought to have told me the truth, and yet I would not face the truth. I said over and over to myself, "If he dies, it is terrible; if he dies, it means ruin for us;" but nevertheless I knew well, although I would not face the truth, that I was not thinking of the ruin to the house in Graham Square, nor the blow to mother, nor the loss of James Randolph simply as a friend. There was a deeper cause for my grief. It was useless for me to say to my own heart Jim Randolph was nothing to me. I knew well that he was. I knew well that he was more to me than any one else in the wide world; that I—yes, although he had never spoken of his love for me, I loved him, yes, I loved him with my full heart.
In the morning I made up my mind that I would go and see the Duchess. Perhaps, too, she might know something about Jim Randolph, as he was a friend of hers, a friend about whom she was always hinting, but about whom she said very little.
As I was leaving the house Jane called me into her sitting-room.
"Where are you going," she said.