will be quickest. We must begin there, by trying to find out who sent the package."
"Henry Spearman's already sent to have that investigated."
Alan made no reply; but she saw his lips draw tighter quickly. "I must go myself as soon as I can," he said, after a moment.
She helped him put the muffler and the other articles back into the box; she noticed that the wedding ring was no longer with them. He had taken that, then; it had meant to him all that she had known it must mean. . . .
In the morning she was up very early; but Alan, the servants told her, had risen before she had and had gone out. The morning, after the cool northern night, was chill. She slipped a sweater on and went out on the veranda, loking about for him. An iridescent haze shrouded the hills and the bay; in it she heard a ship's bell strike twice; then another struck twice—then another—and another—and another. The haze thinned as the sun grew warmer, showing the placid water of the bay on which the ships stood double—a real ship and a mirrored one. She saw Alan returning, and knowing from the direction from which he came that he must have been to the telegraph office, she ran to meet him.
"Was there an answer?" she inquired eagerly.
He took a yellow telegraph sheet from his pocket and held it for her to read.
"Watch presented Captain Caleb Stafford, master of propeller freighter Marvin Halch for rescue of crew and passengers of sinking steamer Winnebago off Long Point, Lake Erie."
