about a ship--about
the _Miwaka_, the ship of whose loss no one had known anything except
by the sounding of the Drum. What had the man been doing in the house?
Had he too been looking for the explanation--the explanation that Henry
feared? Alan had described the man to her; that description had not
had meaning for her before; but now remembering that description she
could think of Henry as the only one who could have been in that house!
Henry had fought with Alan there! Afterwards, when Alan had been
attacked upon the street, had Henry anything to do with that?

Henry had lied to her about being in Duluth the night he had fought
with Alan; he had not told her the true cause of his quarrels with
Uncle Benny; he had wished her to believe that Uncle Benny was dead
when the wedding ring and watch came to her--the watch which had been
Captain Stafford's of the _Miwaka_! Henry had urged her to marry him
at once. Was that because he wished the security that her father--and
she--must give her husband when they learned the revelation which Alan
or Uncle Benny might bring?

If so, then that revelation had to do with the _Miwaka_. It was of the
_Miwaka_ that Henry had cried out to Alan in the house; they were the
names of the next of kin of those on the _Miwaka_ that Uncle Benny had
kept. That was beginning to explain to her something of the effect on
Henry of the report that the Drum was telling that some on Ferry Number
25 were alive, and why he had hurried north because of that. The
Drum--so superstition had said--had beat the roll of those who died
with the _Miwaka_; had beaten for all but one! No one of those who
accepted the superstition had ever been able to explain that; but Henry
could! He knew something more about the _Miwaka_ than others knew. He
had encountered the _Miwaka_ somehow or encountered some one saved from
the _Miwaka_; he knew, then, that the Drum had beaten correctly for the
_Miwaka_, that one was spared as the Drum had told! Who had that one
been? Alan? And was he now among those for whom the Drum had not yet
beat?

She recalled that, on the day when the _Miwaka_ was lost, Henry and
Uncle Benny had been upon the lake in a tug. Afterwards Uncle Benny
had grown rich; Henry had attained advancement and wealth. Her
reasoning had brought her to the verge of a terrible discovery. If she
could take one more step forward in her thought, it would make her
understand it all. But she could not