Making what haste she could, kissing her boy a hundred times, and
recommending him to the special care of his nurse and of his father
during her absence, she drove with her husband to the station, and was
just in time for a train. Mr. Hamlyn watched it steam out of the
station, and then looked up at the clock.
"I suppose it's not too early to see him," he muttered. "I'll chance it,
at any rate. Hope he will be less suffering than he was yesterday, and
less crusty, too."
Dismissing his carriage, for he felt more inclined to walk than to
drive, he went through the park to Pimlico, and gained the house of
Major Pratt.
This was Friday. On the previous Wednesday evening a note had been
brought to Mr. Hamlyn by Major Pratt's servant, a sentence in which, as
the reader may remember, ran as follows:
"_I suppose there was no mistake in the report that that ship did
go down--and that none of the passengers were saved from it?_"
This puzzled Philip Hamlyn: perhaps somewhat troubled him in a hazy kind
of way. For he could only suppose that the ship alluded to must be the
sailing vessel in which his first wife, false and faithless, and his
little son of a twelvemonth old had been lost some five or six years
ago--the _Clipper of the Seas_. And the next day, (Thursday) he had gone
to Major Pratt's, as requested, to carry the prescription for gout he
had asked for, and also to inquire of the Major what he meant.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65