et Mrs. Trafton did not understand that any greater peril menaced
her nephew.

"Mrs. Trafton, we have just been over to Egg Island," said the
fisherman.

"And didn't you find him?"

"No; he was not there."

"But how could he get off?"

"He was seen this afternoon making a raft from the old timbers he found
in the wreck. He must have put to sea on it."

"Then why is he not here?"

"The sea was rough, and----"

Mrs. Trafton, who had been standing, sank into a chair with a startled
look.

"You don't think my boy is lost?"

"I hate to think so, Mrs. Trafton, but it may be."

From grief there was a quick transition to righteous indignation.

"If the poor boy is drowned, I charge John Trafton with his death!" said
the grief-stricken woman with an energy startling for one of her usually
calm temperament.

"What's this about John Trafton?" demanded a rough voice.

It was John Trafton himself, who, unobserved, had reached the door of
the cabin.

Ben Bence and Herbert shrank from him with natural aversion.

"So you're talking against me behind my back, are you?" asked Trafton,
looking from one to the other with a scowl.

His wife rose to her feet and turned upon him a glance such as he had
never met before.

"What have you done with Robert, John Trafton?" she demanded sternly.

"Oh! that's it, is it?" he said, laughing shortly. "I've served him as
he deserved."

"What have you done with him?" she continued in a slow, measured voice.

"You needn't come any tragedy over me, old woman!" he answered with
annoyance. "I left him on Egg Island to punish him for disobeying me!"

"I charge you with his murder!" she continued, confronting him with a
courage quite new to her.

"Murder!" he repeated, starting. "Come, now, that's a little too strong!
Leaving him on Egg Island isn't murdering him. You talk like a fool!"

"Trafton," said Ben Bence gravely, "there is reason to think that your
nephew put off from the island on a raft, which he made himself, and
that the raft went to pieces."

For the first time John Trafton's brown face lost its color.

"You don't mean to say Bob's drowned?" he ejaculated.

"There is reason to fear that he may be."

"I'll bet he's on the island now."

"We have just been there and he is not there."

At length Trafton began to see that the situation was a grave one, and
he began to exculpate himself.

"If he was such a fool as to put to sea on a crazy raft it ain't my
fault