Nearly a year had elapsed since the sailing of the
Fair Emily, and Binchester, which had listened
doubtfully to the tale of the treasure as revealed
by Mr. William Russell, was still awaiting news of
her fate. Cablegrams to Sydney only elicited
the information that she had not been heard of, and
the opinion became general that she had added but one
more to the many mysteries of the sea.
Captain Bowers, familiar with many cases of ships
long overdue which had reached home in safety, still
hoped, but it was clear from the way in which Mrs.
Chalk spoke of her husband and the saint-like qualities
she attributed to him that she never expected to see
him again. Mr. Stobell also appeared to his
wife through tear-dimmed eyes as a person of great
gentleness and infinite self-sacrifice.
“All the years we were married,” she said
one afternoon to Mrs. Chalk, who had been listening
with growing impatience to an account of Mr. Stobell
which that gentleman would have been the first to disclaim,
“I never gave him a cross word. Nothing
was too good for me; I only had to ask to have.”
Mrs. Chalk couldn’t help herself. “Why
don’t you ask, then?” she inquired.
Mrs. Stobell started and eyed her indignantly.
“So long as I had him I didn’t want anything
else,” she said, stiffly. “We were
all in all to each other; he couldn’t bear me
out of his sight. I remember once, when I had
gone to see my poor mother, he sent me three telegrams
in thirty-five minutes telling me to come home.”
“Thomas was so unselfish,” murmured Mrs.
Chalk. “I once stayed with my mother for
six weeks and he never said a word.”
An odd expression, transient but unmistakable, flitted
across the face of the listener.
“It nearly broke his heart, though, poor dear,”
said Mrs. Chalk, glaring at her. “He said
he had never had such a time in his life.”
“I don’t expect he had,” said Mrs.
Stobell, screwing up her small features.
Mrs. Chalk drew herself up in her chair. “What
do you mean by that?” she demanded.
“I meant what he meant,” replied Mrs.
Stobell, with a little air of surprise.
Mrs. Chalk bit her lip, and her friend, turning her
head, gazed long and mournfully at a large photograph
of Mr. Stobell painted in oils, which stared stiffly
down on them from the wall.
“He never caused me a moment’s uneasiness,”
she said, tenderly. “I could trust him
anywhere.”
[Illustration: “Her friend gazed long and
mournfully at a large photograph of Mr. Stobell.”]
Mrs. Chalk gazed thoughtfully at the portrait.
It was not a good likeness, but it was more like
Mr. Stobell than anybody else in Binchester, a fact
which had been of some use in allaying certain unworthy
suspicions of Mr. Stobell the first time he saw it.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Chalk, significantly,
“I should think you could.”
