SUSPENSE.

An elderly man, short-statured and with his grave countenance surmounted by a pair of spectacles, glanced at them from behind the desk of the neat little hotel as they approached it. Philip drew forward the register and took up the pen proffered him. Then he checked himself.

“No! It wont do to register—at least to register our own names; and I don’t like to put down others.”

During the instant’s hesitation came an exclamation from Gerald.

“Look! look!” he whispered in joyful surprise. “There they are—both of them!”

Sure enough, sprawled in a familiar fist, could be read “Jay Marcy” and “Gerald B. Saxton,” under a stated date.

Philip turned quickly to the man. “Are Mr. Marcy and Mr. Saxton still with you? I’m very anxious to meet them, sir.”

[248]

“Two gentlemen from New York? at least one of them? No; they went from here several days ago.”

The disappointment was as sudden as the hope.

“Do you know what place they left for?” asked Philip, eagerly—“their addresses? We want to get a message forwarded to them as soon as possible.”

The man consulted a memorandum-book. “I don’t know where they were going to. H’m! Letters to be sent to the Epoch Club, New York, and to the Ossokosee Hotel. That’s Mr. Marcy’s address. He’s the proprietor.”

“Papa belongs to the Epoch,” whispered Gerald.

“You are sure they did not expect to return here at present?”

“I don’t know. They said nothing about that; and there are those addresses. The gentlemen came on because of the loss of the steamer. Mr. Saxton’s son was drowned, with a clerk of Mr. Marcy’s, I believe, at the same time.”

The lads turned and looked at each other in astonishment. So they were really not supposed[249] to be in the land of the living? Philip had feared it.

“Mr. Saxton’s son—and the clerk?” he replied. “How was it known?”

“O, they were both upset in a boat, overturned in making for the shore. A sailor was picked up who had been in it; he told how it happened. Nobody else escaped—out of that boat. Their bodies weren’t recovered.”

“Mr. Marcy and Mr. Saxton—came on?”

“Yes; got here the day after. Mr. Saxton was almost distracted, I believe. I didn’t see much of either of ’em. They only stayed until the folks on the steamer that came off safe were all in. Mr. Saxton’s boy was a little fellow—about as big as you,” he added, pointing to Gerald. “It’s been a bad thing for his father, I understand—broke him all up.”

Philip laid a hand on Gerald’s trembling arm to warn him not to give way to the emotions almost ready to burst out. Gerald bit his lips and looked down at the register.

“Guess you must ’a’ been camping somewhere that the newspapers don’t get to very quick,” the elderly man said, smiling.

[250]

“We haven’t seen the papers,” assented Touchtone, simply. “One minute, please!”

He read down the page, recognizing several names of passengers on board the Old Province. He found what he expected—“John A. Belmont, N. Y. C.,” and, lo and behold! beneath it, in the same hand, “W. Jennison, N. Y. C.” A rogue’s device, truly!

“Is this Mr. Belmont—or is Mr. Jennison in the house?” He put the question nervously.

“Neither of ’em. Mr. Jennison I know quite well. I didn’t see the other gentleman with him. They had adjoining rooms. They left the day Mr. Marcy and Mr. Saxton got here. The room was vacant. I put Mr. Marcy in it, I remember.”

“Can you give me their addresses, sir?” Philip inquired, more courageously.

“H’m! Mr. Belmont’s left no directions, nor Mr. Jennison either. I don’t find any.” He laid the memorandum-book down; he was becoming impatient.

“I’d like to see the proprietor of the hotel,” said Philip. “My friend and I must make some plans about stopping here or going to New York.”

[251]

“I am the proprietor,” returned the elderly man. “My name is Banger. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to talk a little while with you, somewhere else than here—where we won’t be overheard, please. It won’t take long.”

Mr. Banger suspected some confession of a school-boy lark or a runaway, shortness of funds for hotel bills, or some appeal to his kindness of that sort. He had had boys make them before. But he called to a young man coming into the office, “Here, Joe; I’ve business with these gentlemen. Look after things till I get through,” and led Philip toward a little room across the hall. Gerald would have accompanied them, but Touchtone prevented it. It might interfere with what details he must disclose. Gerald sat down in the office with his back to Joe, and stared at the wall with eyes full of tears, and with a heavy heart that Touchtone hoped he could soon lighten.

Some persons have a faculty of not being surprised. Mr. Banger generally believed he had. But it is improbable that any Knoxport citizen was ever quite so astonished as he was by the[252] first sentence of Philip’s account. During the process of mastering the details that came after it he fairly reveled in such a story as it unfolded. He could hardly be kept from calling Joe and all Knoxport to draw near and partake of such a feast.

“I do, I do congratulate you with all my heart!” he declared over and over. “Your escape has been a miracle. And to think they have been mourning and lamenting and giving you both quite up,” he continued. “But the mourning is nothing to make light of when it’s a father’s for his son, or such a kind of grief as Mr. Marcy’s. I’m glad I didn’t say more before that little fellow. Never did I see a man so cut to the heart in all my life as his father. Marcy had to keep with him every minute of the little time they were in town.”

“The thing is, then, to get word to them both just as soon as can be. Unless they went straight back to town or to the Ossokosee—”

“Somehow I doubt if they did. I think I heard to the contrary. We’ll wire at once. Will you stay here with young Saxton till you get answers to your telegrams?”

“I guess that’s the best thing for us.”

[253]

“I’ll see to it you’re comfortable. And, look here, do you know what I’d do next—the very minute you’ve got through your dispatch?”

“No; what, sir?”

“I’d go down to the office of the Knoxport Anchor and ask for Benny Fillmore, the editor. Fillmore sends all the news from this part of the country to some of the New York and Boston papers. He’ll telegraph your whole story to two or three, to-night. It’ll be in print to-morrow, and that’s a way of telling all your friends that you’re alive and waiting to hear from them that likely will beat any other.”

“That is a good idea,” Philip replied, struck with it. “It’s doubtful how soon we can get direct word.”

But as he spoke he remembered a reason why Mr. Banger’s last suggestion was not a good one, after all. No, better not adopt it.

“I’ll just step to the desk and register for you, or let you do it for yourselves. Eh? What’s that?”

“I think it would be better for us not to register,” Philip said, slowly, “if you don’t mind; and, on second thoughts, perhaps we[254] hadn’t better be telegraphed about—to the papers.”

“Why not, for pity’s sake? You can keep as much to yourselves while you are here as you like. You needn’t be pestered by visitors out of curiosity, if that’s what you’re thinking of.”

“No, not that. The fact is, there is—a person who might give us a great deal of trouble and upset all our plans badly if he happened to know that we were here alone—if this person could get here before Mr. Marcy or Mr. Saxton.”

Mr. Banger was nonplused. He deprecated keeping from all the rest of Knoxport and of creation this romantic return of the dead to life. Good could be done by it; and besides his own name and his hotel’s would attain the glory of New York print. What foolishness was this?

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What kind of a person? How could you be annoyed? I’ll look after you.”

There was no helping it. Philip had to explain as much of the Hilliard-Belmont persecution as made its outlines clear. He hurried it over. But of the names, and especially of his[255] discovery that the man Belmont and Mr. Winthrop Jennison were the same person, he uttered not a syllable. “Where’s the use?” he thought. “I ought not to give you the name,” he repeated, firmly—“at least not now.”

Mr. Banger looked at him and then at the ceiling, and nodded his head slowly to show that he was considering, or would let this or that point pass for the present. Then he asked sundry questions. Philip answered them with an uncomfortable feeling that after piling Ossa on Pelion in this way he might be—doubted. But he fought off that notion.

“Well,” said Mr. Banger, “I don’t see that you’d best let Fillmore go without his news. If this man comes, as you say he might, I will see that you get rid of him. It’s a great mistake, it’s downright cruel, not to use the newspapers.”

“I think we’d better not,” Philip said, firmly.

“It may save hours and days. Those men may have gone where letters will be slower than print.”

“I know it; but I can’t have that man bothering us again. If I were alone I shouldn’t care.”

[256]

“But you are not alone,” persisted Mr. Banger. “I tell you, I’ll be here to look after him, if he makes new trouble.”

Touchtone held to his point. There was to be no publicity of their affairs even in Knoxport. So Mr. Banger gave in, without the best grace. The matter was not being adjusted as he thought proper. Nevertheless both returned in good humor to Gerald, whose quiet distress had given place to restlessness at the prolonged absence of Philip.

They were put down on the register as “Mr. Philip and brother.” Their room was assigned them. Newspapers sent up were read eagerly, with the accounts of the steamer’s fate. The two hurried down the street to the station where was the telegraph-office. All idea of leaving Knoxport until word came was abandoned.

“I am going to send to the Ossokosee—just that—for addresses, and to Mr. Hilliard in New York. They will be glad to hear about us, I know, and perhaps the news will reach your father or Mr. Marcy sooner.”

“Mr. Hilliard said he was to leave town that day for the West.”

[257]

“So he did! But here goes!”

The operator took the dispatches leisurely.

“Of course you know these may not get off this evening; perhaps they will, sometime to-night.”

“Why not?” Philip asked, in dismay.

“The storm has broken our connections. They’ve been working on the line all day. It may be running as usual any hour now, or not until to-morrow.”

Another set-back!

“Please do the best you can with them,” he replied. “I will come down from the hotel after supper, to inquire.”

They turned toward the post-office and sent the letters, and a card to the Probascos. There was some shopping that was absolutely necessary. That mild distraction was good for both of them. They bought whatever they needed, including a small trunk.

“Well, there’s one good thing—we’ve money enough to get through quite a siege, Gerald. Mr. Marcy allowed us a wide margin over traveling expenses. We can wait and wait, here or elsewhere, without danger of being on the town.”

[258]

“But how long must we wait, I wonder?” replied Gerald, tremulously. “O, Philip, it seems to me every thing gets into a worse muddle each minute. You’re trying to hide it from me. When will they get word from us?”

“By to-morrow we shall hear from them, depend on it. Perhaps in the forenoon. I don’t know what you can think I’m hiding, you lost Gerald Saxton, you! It’s all a queer jumble.”

His eff............