“They will never come back,” said she.  “You will never find them.”

She spoke so calmly that her father was deceived.  If this was her conviction, it would be safe to speak his own.

“The tide may bring the poor fellows in,” said he.

At these words the cap which the poor girl held fell from her hand.  She spoke no more.  No word or cry escaped her,—­not by a look did she acknowledge that there was community in this grief,—­as solitary as if she were alone in the universe, she sat gazing into the fire.  She was not overcome by things external, tangible, as she had been when she sat alone out on the sea-beach at the Point.  The world in an instant seemed to sink out of her vision, and time from her consciousness; her soul set out on a search in which her mortal sense had failed,—­and here no arm of flesh could help her.

“I shall find him,” she said, in a whisper.  They all heard her, and looked at one another, trouble and wonder in their faces.  “I shall find him,” she repeated, in a louder tone; and she drew herself up, and bent forward,—­but her eyes saw not the cheerful fire-light, her ears took in no sound of crackling fagot, rising wind, or muttered fear among the three who sat and looked at her.

Bondo Emmins had taken up the cap when Clarice dropped it,—­he had examined it inside and out, and passed it to Dame Briton.  There was no mistaking the ownership.  Not a child of Diver’s Bay but would have recognized it as the property of Luke Merlyn.  The dame passed it to the old man, who looked at it through tears, and then smoothed it over his great fist, and came nearer to the fire, and silence fell upon them all.

At last Dame Briton said, beginning stoutly, but ending with a sob, “Has anybody seen poor Merlyn’s wife?  Who’ll tell her?  Oh! oh!”

“I will go tell her that Clarice found the cap,” said Bondo Emmins, rising.

Clarice sat like one in a stupor,—­but, that was no dull light shining from her eyes.  Still she seemed deaf and dumb; for, when Bondo bade her good-night, she did not answer him, nor give the slightest intimation that she was aware of what passed around her.

But when he was gone, and her father said,—­“Come, Clarice,—­now for bed,—­you’ll wake the earlier,”—­she instantly arose to act on his suggestion.

He followed her to the door of her little chamber and lingered there a moment.  He wanted to say something for comfort, but had nothing to say; so he turned away in silence, and drank a pint of grog.

IV.