There was a train to the north every evening; it was not, she knew, such a train as ran in the resort season, and she was not certain of the exact time of its departure; but she would be in time for it. The manner of buying a railway ticket and of engaging a berth were unknown to her—there had been servants always to do these things—but she watched others and did as they did. On the train, the berths had been made up; people were going to bed behind some of the curtains. She procured a telegraph blank and wrote a message to her mother, telling her that she had gone north to join her father. When the train had started, she gave the message to the porter, directing him to send it from the first large town at which they stopped.
She left the light burning in its little niche at the head of the berth; she had no expectation that she could sleep; shut in by the green curtains, she drew the covers up about her and stared upward at the paneled face of the berth overhead. Then new frightened distrust of the man she had been about to marry flowed in upon her and became all her thought.
She had not promised Uncle Benny that she would not marry Henry; her promise had been that she would not engage herself to that marriage until she had seen Uncle Benny again. Uncle Benny's own act—his disappearance—-had prevented her from seeing him; for that reason she had broken her promise; and, from its breaking, something terrifying, threatening to herself had come. She had been amazed at what she had seen in Henry; but she was appreciating now that, strangely, in her thought of him there was no sense of loss to herself. Her feeling of loss, of something gone from her which could not be replaced, was for Alan. She had had admiration for Henry, pride in him; had she mistaken what was merely admiration for love? She had been about to marry him; had it been only his difference from the other men she knew that had made her do that? Unconsciously to herself, had she been growing to love Alan?
Constance could not, as yet, place Henry's part in the strange circumstances which had begun to reveal themselves with Alan's coming to Chicago; but Henry's hope that Uncle Benny and Alan were dead was beginning to make that clearer. She lay without voluntary movement in her berth, but her bosom was shaking with the thoughts which came to her.
Twenty years before, some dreadful event had altered Uncle Benny's life; his wife had known—or had learned—enough of that event so that she had left him. It had seemed to Constance and her father, therefore, that it must have been some intimate and private event. They had been confirmed in believing this, when Uncle Benny, in madness or in fear, had gone away, leaving everything he possessed to Alan Conrad. But Alan's probable relationship to Uncle Benny had not been explanation; she saw now that it had even been misleading. For a purely private event in Uncle Benny's life—even terrible scandal—could not make Henry fear, could not bring terror of consequences to himself. That could be only if Henry was involved in some peculiar and intimate way with what had happened to Uncle Benny. If he feared Uncle Benny's being found alive and feared Alan's being found alive too, now that Alan had discovered Uncle Benny, it was because he dreaded explanation of his own connection with what had taken place.
Constance raised her window shade slightly and looked out. It was still snowing; the train was running swiftly among low sand hills, snow-covered, and only dimly visible through snow and dark. A deep-toned, steady roar came to her above the noises of the train. The lake! Out there, Alan and Uncle Benny were fighting, still struggling perhaps, against bitter cold and ice and rushing water for their lives. She must not think of that!
Uncle Benny had withdrawn himself from men; he had ceased to be active in his business and delegated it to others. This change had been strangely advantageous to Henry. Henry had been hardly more than a common seaman then. He had been a mate—the mate on one of Uncle Benny's ships. Quite suddenly he had become Uncle Benny's partner. Henry had explained this to her by saying that Uncle Benny had felt madness coming on him and had selected him as the one to take charge. But Uncle Benny had not trusted Henry; he had been suspicious of him; he had quarreled with him. How strange, then, that Uncle Benny should have advanced and given way to a man whom he could not trust!
It was strange, too, that if—as Henry had said—their quarrels had been about the business, Uncle Benny had allowed Henry to remain in control.
Their quarrels had culminated on the day that Uncle Benny went away. Afterward Uncle Benny had come to her and warned her not to marry Henry; then he had sent for Alan. There had been purpose in these acts of Uncle Benny's; had they meant that Uncle Benny had been on the verge of making explanation—that explanation which Henry feared—and that he had been—prevented? Her father had thought this; at least, he had thought that Uncle Benny must have left some explanation in his house. He had told Alan that, and had given Alan the key to the house so that he could find it. Alan had gone to the house—
In the house Alan had found some one who had mistaken him for a ghost, a man who had cried out at sight of him something about a ship—about the Miwaka, the ship of whose loss no one had known anything except by the sounding of the Drum. What had the man been doing in the house? Had he too been looking for the explanation—the explanation that Henry feared? Alan had described the man to her; that description had not had meaning for her before; but now remembering that description she could think of Henry as the only one who could have been in that house! Henry had fought with Alan there! Afterwards, when Alan had been attacked upon the street, had Henry anything to do with that?