o learn about himself, Alan had found no mention of his
mother--no mention, indeed, of any woman. There had been mention,
definite mention, of but one thing which seemed, no matter what form
these new experiences of his took, to connect himself with all of
them--mention of a ship, a lost ship--the _Miwaka_. That name had
stirred Alan, when he first heard it, with the first feeling he had
been able to get of any possible connection between himself and these
people here. Spoken by himself just now it had stirred, queerly
stirred, Spearman. What was it, then, that he--Alan--had to do with
the _Miwaka_? Spearman might--must have had something to do with it.
So must Corvet. But himself--he had been not yet three years old when
the _Miwaka_ was lost! Beyond and above all other questions, what had
Constance Sherrill to do with it?

She had continued to believe that Corvet's disappearance was related in
some way to herself. Alan would rather trust her intuition as to this
than trust to Sherrill's contrary opinion. Yet she, certainly, could
have had no direct connection with a ship lost about the time she was
born and before her father had allied himself with the firm of Corvet
and Spearman. In the misty warp and woof of these events, Alan could
find as yet nothing which could have involved her. But he realized
that he was thinking about her even more than he was thinking about
Spearman--more, at that moment, even than about the mystery which
surrounded himself.

Constance Sherrill, as she went about her shopping at Field's, was
feeling the strangeness of the experience she had shared that morning
with Alan when she had completed for him the Indian creation legend and
had repeated the ship rhymes of his boyhood; but her more active
thought was about Henry Spearman, for she had a luncheon engagement
with him at one o'clock. He liked one always to be prompt at
appointments; he either did not keep an engagement at all, or he was on
the minute, neither early nor late, except for some very unusual
circumstance. Constance could never achieve such accurate punctuality,
so several minutes before the hour she went to the agreed corner of the
silverware department.

She absorbed herself intently with the selection of her purchase as one
o'clock approached. She was sure that, after his three days' absence,
he would be a moment early rather than late; but after selecting what
she wanted, she monopolized twelve minutes mor