on_, 'Do you get anything?
Signals have stopped here.'

"5:48, The _Richardson_ is calling Petoskey, 'We get nothing now. Do
you?'

"6:30, Petoskey is calling Manitowoc, 'Signals after becoming
indistinct, failed entirely about 5:45, probably by failure of ship's
power to supply current. Operator appears to have remained at key.
From 5:25 to 5:43 we received disconnected messages, as follows: 'Have
cleared another car ... they are sticking to it down there ...
engine-room crew is also sticking ... hell on car deck ... everything
smashed ... they won't give up ... sinking now ... we're going ...
good-by ... stuck to end ... all they could ... know that ... hand it
to them ... have cleared another car ... sink ... S.O.... Signals then
entirely ceased.'"

There was no more than this. Constance let the papers fall back upon
the desk and looked to her mother; Mrs. Sherrill loosened her fur
collar and sat back, breathing more comfortably. Constance quickly
shifted her gaze and, trembling and with head erect, she walked to the
window and looked out. The meaning of what she had read was quite
clear; her mother was formulating it.

"So they are both lost, Mr. Corvet and his--son," Mrs. Sherrill said
quietly.

Constance did not reply, either to refuse or to concur in the
conclusion. There was not anything which was meant to be merciless in
that conclusion; her mother simply was crediting what probably had
occurred. Constance could not in reason refuse to accept it too; yet
she was refusing it. She had not realized, until these reports of the
wireless messages told her that he was gone, what companionship with
Alan had come to mean to her. She had accepted it as always to be
existent, somehow--a companionship which might be interrupted often but
always to be formed again. It amazed her to find how firm a place he
had found in her world of those close to her with whom she must always
be intimately concerned.

Her mother arose and came beside her. "May it not be better,
Constance, that it has happened this way?"

"Better!" Constance cried. She controlled herself.

It was only what Henry had said to her months ago when Alan had left
her in the north in the search which had resulted in the finding of
Uncle Benny--"Might it not be better for him not to find out?" Henry,
who could hazard more accurately than any one else the nature of that
strange secret which Alan now must have "found out," had believed it;
he