"My poor, poor child," Mrs. Odell says, with impulsive tenderness. "You must not be too sure. We can be sure of nothing in this world."
"You have heard—something!" Reine says, with vague terror, looking fixedly at the lady.
"Yes, dear. I have here some papers that I have been trying for sometime to get, the English and American papers with the accounts of the burning of the Hesperus and the list of those lost."
"And—my husband?" Reine says, looking at the lady with burning eyes.
"Is reported among the lost," Mrs. Odell replies, the papers trembling in her trembling hands.
A moment's silence, then Reine, trembling all over with emotion, rallies bravely from the shock.
"Am not I, too, reported among the lost?" she inquires.
"Yes, here it is, dear," and Mrs. Odell reads, under the heading of "Lost:" "'Vane Charteris and wife.'"
"So you see that does not really signify anything," Reine says, momentarily radiant. "Here I am safe and sound on terra firma. And Vane had so much better a chance than I had that he cannot be dead. Did I not see him safe on board the life-boat myself?"
"But, listen, dear," Mrs. Odell answers, sorrowfully.