“Miss Mary come, Mars’ Tom,” said the old darkey through the keyhole. “She done got a letter from her father.”
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Tom, getting out of bed in a hurry. “He can’t have got off that iceberg and written her, all as quickly as this!”
He did not stop to dress, but put on his blanket robe and went downstairs. Mary was talking with Mr. Swift and had already got an inkling of the trouble. She was very pale and her eyes glistened with tears.
“Oh, Tom! what shall we do?” she cried, when the young inventor appeared. “We never should have let him go with Mr. Damon.”
“Why not?” Tom demanded. “Isn’t your father better?”
“He says in this letter that he is. Much better. But that was written a month ago. It was sent by the last mail steamer for the season. Father and Mr. Damon should have taken that steamer. But the legacy Mr. Damon went after had not then been put into his hands. Think, Tom! Thirty thousand dollars in Danish money that his old friend, Aman Dele, left to him. The priest had it hidden away in a vault under his little stone church at Rosestone. Father tells us all about it in this letter.”
“Then they are only delayed up there in Iceland,” began Tom rather faintly.
“Don’t!” exclaimed Mary. “I know more than that. Your father says they have been wrecked at sea. I must know all, Tom,” and Mary’s eyes filled with tears as she struggled courageously for self-control.
“Oh, it may not be anywhere near as bad as it seems,” began Tom.
“But—but they are lost? Oh, Tom! What shall we do? And what would I ever do without you, Tom? It startles me sometimes when I realize how much I depend on you.”