And he went
on to say, in answer to a remark of mine about all the passengers having
been lost, that that was not quite correct, for that one of them had
certainly been saved--a lady or a nurse, he didn't know which, and also
a little child that she was in charge of. He was positive about it, he
added, upon my expressing my doubts, for they got to shore in the same
small boat that he did."
"Is it true, think you?" gasped Mr. Hamlyn.
"Sir, we are inclined to think it is not true," emphatically spoke the
old gentleman. "Upon inquiring about this man's character, we found that
he is given to drinking, so that what he says cannot always be relied
upon. Again, it seems next to an impossibility that if any passenger
were saved we should not have heard of it. Altogether we feel inclined
to judge that the man, though evidently believing he spoke truth, was
but labouring under an hallucination."
"Can you tell me where I can find the man?" asked Mr. Hamlyn, after a
pause.
"Not anywhere at present, sir. He has sailed again."
So that ended it for the day. Philip Hamlyn went home and sat down to
dinner with his wife, as already spoken of. And when she told him that
the mysterious lady waiting outside must be waiting for him--probably
some acquaintance of his of the years gone by--it set his brain working
and his pulses throbbing, for he suddenly connected her with what he had
that day heard. No wonder his head ached!
To-day, after seeing his wife off by train, he went to find Major Pratt.
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