“You never know what may happen at sea, mister, till it happens,” Benjamin Hardy declared. “What became of that boat——”
He seemed to stick to that idea. But the possibility of the small boat’s having escaped seemed utterly preposterous to Mr. Stagg. He arose to depart.
“Of course, you won’t say anything to the child to disturb her mind,” he said. “Poor little thing! It’s hard enough for her as it is.”
“I’ll keep my jaws clamped shut like a clam, mister,” declared the sailor.
Miss Amanda followed the hardware dealer to the outer door. She hesitated to speak, yet Mr. Stagg’s unhappy face won an observation from her.
“Oh, don’t you suppose there is any chance of their being alive?” she whispered.
“After all these months?” groaned Mr. Stagg. “The old fellow may tell the truth, as far as he’s gone, and as far as he knows; but if they were alive we’d have heard about it before now. That African coast isn’t a desert—nor yet a wilderness—nowadays. Those Arabs have been pretty well tamed, I reckon. No, we’d have heard long before this.”
“I’m sorry,” said Miss Amanda simply.
“Thank—thank you,” murmured Joseph Stagg before she closed the door.
He went on to town, his mind strangely disturbed. It was not his sister’s fate that filled his heart and brain, but thoughts of Miss Amanda.