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134 mother? In what had been told him, in all that he had been able to learn about himself, Alan had found no mention of his mother—no mention, indeed, of any woman. There had been mention, definite mention, of but one thing which seemed, no matter what form these new experiences of his took, to connect himself with all of them—mention of a ship, a lost ship—the Miwaka. That name had stirred Alan, when he first heard it, with the first feeling he had been able to get of any possible connection between himself and these people here. Spoken by himself just now it had stirred, queerly stirred, Spearman. What was it, then, that he—Alan—had to do with the Miwaka? Spearman might—must have had something to do with it. So must Corvet. But himself—he had been not yet three years old when the Miwaka was lost! Beyond and above all other questions, what had Constance Sherrill to do with it?

She had continued to believe that Corvet's disappearance was related in some way to herself. Alan would rather trust her intuition as to this than trust to Sherrill's contrary opinion. Yet she, certainly, could have had no direct connection with a ship lost about the time she was born and before her father had allied himself with the firm of Corvet and Spearman. In the misty warp and woof of these events, Alan could find as yet nothing which could have involved her. But he realized that he was thinking about her even more than he was thinking about Spearman—more, at that moment, even than about the mystery which surrounded himself.

Constance Sherrill, as she went about her shopping at Field's, was feeling the strangeness of the experience