There was something he
wanted to tell his wife, but he could not
think clearly for the roaring in his ears.
Suddenly he remembered what it was.
He caught his breath, and then she let him go.
The work of recovering the dead went
on all day and all the following night.
By the next morning forty-eight bodies had been
taken out of the river, but there were still
twenty missing. Many of the men had fallen
with the bridge and were held down under
the debris. Early on the morning of the
second day a closed carriage was driven slowly
along the river-bank and stopped a little
below the works, where the river boiled and
churned about the great iron carcass which
lay in a straight line two thirds across it.
The carriage stood there hour after hour,
and word soon spread among the crowds on
the shore that its occupant was the wife
of the Chief Engineer; his body had not
yet been found. The widows of the lost workmen,
moving up and down the bank with shawls
over their heads, some of them carrying
babies, looked at the rusty hired hack many
times that morning. They drew near it and
walked about it, but none of them ventured
to peer within. Even half-indifferent sight-
seers dropped their voices as they told a
newcomer: "You see that carriage over there?
That's Mrs. Alexander. They haven't found
him yet. She got off the train this morning.
Horton met her. She heard it in Boston yesterday
--heard the newsboys crying it in the street.
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