back over the twenty-year-old files,
she had read the account of the loss of the _Miwaka_, with all on
board. That fate was modified only by the Indian Drum beating short.
So one man from the _Miwaka_ had been saved somehow, many believed. If
that could have been, there was, or there had been, some one alive
after the ship "disappeared"--Alan's word went through her with a
chill--who knew what had happened to the ship and who knew of the fate
of his shipmates.

She had gone over the names again; if there was meaning in the Drum,
who was the man who had been saved and visited that fate on Benjamin
Corvet? Was it Luke? There was no Luke named among the crew; but such
men often went by many names. If Luke had been among the crew of the
_Miwaka_ and had brought from that lost ship something which threatened
Uncle Benny that, at least, explained Luke.

Then another idea had seized her. Captain Caleb Stafford was named
among the lost, of course; with him had perished his son, a boy of
three. That was all that was said, and all that was to be learned of
him, the boy.

Alan had been three then. This was wild, crazy speculation. The ship
was lost with all hands; only the Drum, believed in by the
superstitious and the most ignorant, denied that. The Drum said that
one soul had been saved. How could a child of three have been saved
when strong men, to the last one, had perished? And, if he had been
saved, he was Stafford's son. Why should Uncle Benny have sent him
away and cared for him and then sent for him and, himself disappearing,
leave all he had to--Stafford's son?

Or was he Stafford's son? Her thought went back to the things which
had been sent--the things from a man's pockets with a wedding ring
among them. She had believed that the ring cleared the mother's name;
might it in reality only more involve it? Why had it come back like
this to the man by whom, perhaps, it had been given? Henry's words
came again and again to Constance: "It's a queer concern you've got for
Ben. Leave it alone, I tell you!" He knew then something about Uncle
Benny which might have brought on some terrible thing which Henry did
not know but might guess? Constance went weak within. Uncle Benny's
wife had left him, she remembered. Was it better, after all, to "leave
it alone?"

But it wasn't a thing which one could command one's mind to leave
alone; and Constance could not make herself try to, so long as it
concerned Al