He had known it
from the beginning, from the moment he heard the woman's scream. Mary
Standish was gone.
He looked at her bed. There was the depression made by her head in the
pillow. A little handkerchief lay on the coverlet, crumpled and twisted.
Her few possessions were arranged neatly on the reading table. Then he
saw her shoes and her stockings, and a dress on the bed, and he picked
up one of the shoes and held it in a cold, steady hand. It was a little
shoe. His fingers closed about it until it crushed like paper.
He was holding it when he heard someone behind him, and he turned slowly
to confront Captain Rifle. The little man's face was like gray wax. For
a moment neither of them spoke. Captain Rifle looked at the shoe
crumpled in Alan's hand.
"The boats got away quickly," he said in a husky voice. "We stopped
inside the third-mile. If she can swim--there is a chance."
"She won't swim," replied Alan. "She didn't jump in for that. She is
gone."
In a vague and detached sort of way he was surprised at the calmness of
his own voice. Captain Rifle saw the veins standing out on his clenched
hands and in his forehead. Through many years he had witnessed tragedy
of one kind and another. It was not strange to him. But a look of
wonderment shot into his eyes at Alan's words.
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