Her mother arose and came beside her. "May it not be better, Constance, that it has happened this way?"
"Better!" Constance cried. She controlled herself.
It was only what Henry had said to her months ago when Alan had left her in the north in the search which had resulted in the finding of Uncle Benny—"Might it not be better for him not to find out?" Henry, who could hazard more accurately than any one else the nature of that strange secret which Alan now must have "found out," had believed it; her mother, who at least had lived longer in the world than she, also believed it. There came before Constance the vision of Alan's defiance and refusal to accept the stigma suggested in her father's recital to him of his relationship to Mr. Corvet. There came to her sight of him as he had tried to keep her from entering Uncle Benny's house when Luke was there, and then her waiting with him through the long hour and his dismissal of her, his abnegation of their friendship. And at that time his disgrace was indefinite; last night had he learned something worse than he had dreaded?
The words of his telegram took for her more terrible significance for the moment. "Have some one who knew Mr. Corvet well enough to recognize him even if greatly changed meet..." Were the broken, incoherent words of the wireless the last that she should hear of him, and of Uncle Benny, after that? "They are sticking to it ... down there ... they won't give up ... sinking ... they have cleared another car ... sink..." Had it come as the best way for them both?
"The Richardson is searching for boats, mother," Constance returned steadily, "and Number 26 must be there too by now."
Her mother looked to the storm. Outside the window which overlooked the lake from two hundred feet above the street, the sleet-like snow was driving ceaselessly; all over the western basin of the great lakes, as Constance knew—over Huron, over Michigan, and Superior—the storm was established. Its continuance and severity had claimed a front-page column in the morning papers. Duluth that morning had reported temperature of eighteen below zero and fierce snow; at Marquette it was fifteen below; there was driving snow at the Soo, at Mackinac, and at all ports along both shores. She pictured little boats, at the last moment, getting away from the ferry, deep-laden with injured and exhausted men; how long might those men live in open boats in a gale and with cold like that? The little clock upon her father's desk marked ten o'clock; they had been nearly five hours in the boats now, those men.
Constance knew that as soon as anything new was heard, it would be brought to her; yet, with a word to her mother, she went from her father's room and down the corridor into the general office. A hush of expectancy held this larger room; the clerks moved silently and spoke to one another in low voices; she recognized in a little group of men gathered in a corner of the room some officers of Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman's ships. Others among them, whom she did not know, were plainly seamen too—men who knew "Ben" Corvet and who, on hearing he was on the ferry, had come in to learn what more was known; the business men and clubmen, friends of Corvet's later life, had not heard it yet. There was a restrained, professional attentiveness among these seamen, as of those in the presence of an event which any day might happen to themselves. They were listening to the clerk who had compiled the report, who was telephoning now, and Constance, waiting, listened too to learn what he might be hearing. But he put down the receiver as he saw her.
"Nothing more, Miss Sherrill," he reported. "The Richardson has wirelessed that she reached the reported position of the sinking about half-past six o'clock. She is searching but has found nothing."
"She's keeping on searching, though?"
"Yes; of course."