When they had gone down to the street and were in the car, Constance leaned back, closing her eyes; she feared her mother might wish to talk with her. The afternoon papers were already out with news of the loss of the ferry; Mrs. Sherrill stopped the car and bought one, but Constance looked at it only enough to make sure that the reporters had been able to discover nothing more than she already knew; the newspaper reference to Henry was only as to the partner of the great Chicago ship owner, Benjamin Corvet, who might be lost with the ship.
She called Miss Bennet as soon as she reached home; but nothing more had been received. Toward three o'clock, Miss Bennet called her, but only to report that the office had heard again from Mr. Sherrill. He had wired that he was going on from Manistique and would cross the Straits from St. Ignace; messages from him were to be addressed to Petoskey. He had given no suggestion that he had news; and there was no other report except that vessels were still continuing the search for survivors, because the Indian Drum, which had been beating, was beating "short," causing the superstitious to be certain that, though some of the men from Number 25 were lost, some yet survived.
Constance thrilled as she heard that. She did not believe in the Drum; at least she had never thought she had really believed in it; she had only stirred to the idea of its being true. But if the Drum was beating, she was glad it was beating short. It was serving, at least, to keep the lake men more alert. She wondered what part the report of the Drum might have played in her father's movements. None, probably; for he, of course, did not believe in the Drum. His move was plainly dictated by the fact that, with the western gale, drift from the ferry would be toward the eastern shore.
A little later, as Constance stood at the window, gazing out at the snow upon the lake, she drew back suddenly out of sight from the street, as she saw Henry's roadster appear out of the storm and stop before the house.
She had been apprehensively certain that he would come to her some time during the day; he had been too fully aware of the effect he made upon her not to attempt to remove that effect as soon as he could. As he got out of the car, shaking the snowflakes from his great fur coat and from his cap, looking up at the house before he came in and not knowing that he was observed, she saw something very like triumph in his manner. Her pulses stopped, then raced, at that; triumph for him! That meant, if he brought news, it was good news for him; it must be then, bad news for her.
She waited in the room where she was. She heard him in the hall, taking off his coat and speaking to the servant, and he appeared then at the door. The strain he was under had not lessened, she could see; or rather, if she could trust her feeling at sight of him, it had lessened only slightly, and at the same time his power to resist it had been lessening too. His hands and even his body shook; but his head was thrust forward, and he stared at her aggressively, and, plainly, he had determined in advance to act toward her as though their relationship had not been disturbed.
"I thought you'd want to know, Connie," he said, "so I came straight out. The Richardson's picked up one of the boats from the ferry."
"Uncle Benny and Alan Conrad were not in it," she returned; the triumph she had seen in him had told her that.
"No; it was the first boat put off by the ferry, with the passengers and cabin maid and some injured men of the crew."
"Were they—alive?" her voice hushed tensely.