"No! No! Never had any children," and again
subsided, puffing at his short briar pipe.
"Where are they now?" I inquired next as if anxious to ascertain that all
Fyne's fears had been misplaced and vain as our fears often are; that
there were no undesirable cousins for his dear girls, no danger of
intrusion on their spotless home. Powell looked round at me slowly, his
pipe smouldering in his hand.
"Don't you know?" he uttered in a deep voice.
"Know what?"
"That the _Ferndale_ was lost this four years or more. Sunk. Collision.
And Captain Anthony went down with her."
"You don't say so!" I cried quite affected as if I had known Captain
Anthony personally. "Was--was Mrs. Anthony lost too?"
"You might as well ask if I was lost," Mr. Powell rejoined so testily as
to surprise me. "You see me here,--don't you."
He was quite huffy, but noticing my wondering stare he smoothed his
ruffled plumes. And in a musing tone.
"Yes. Good men go out as if there was no use for them in the world. It
seems as if there were things that, as the Turks say, are written.
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