When the minutes ticked away and no one came to overlook or overhear, a cautious trickle of talk began to flow. Question and answer crossed, low-toned, interrupted by warning looks at the hall door. Where had Rawson gone, what could he be after? That the question lay uppermost in all their minds was shown by the quick response to the first, murmured tentative, the comprehension of sentences left unfinished with only the query in the eyes to point their meaning. The drooping attitudes gave place to a tense eagerness of pose, heads thrust forward on craned necks. Shine forgot his book, the cards lay scattered beneath the hands of Mrs. Cornell and Miss Pinkney, and Flora edged her chair closer. Their voices, hushed by fears, were fused in a murmurous hum, rising as the subject swept their interest higher, checked in sudden minutes of listening alarm. Rawson must have got hold of some information, gone afield on a new clue. Then followed speculations, surmises, suggestions--wild, fantastic, probable. It might have been nothing Shine thought, simply a trip to the county-seat on business connected with the case. At this Anne crept into the circle of lamplight, nodding an avid agreement. Stokes coming forward caught his foot in the edge of the bear rug, stumbled and broke into a stream of curses. Miss Pinkney, who thought oaths anywhere reprehensible and on Gull Island profanation, grimly bade him lift his feet. He glared at her, more curses imminent, and Flora groaned, clutching the arms of her chair and rolling her eyes upward. “For God’s sake don’t mind anything anybody says,” implored Mrs. Cornell slapping her hands down among the cards. “This is a murder case, not a social function.” They calmed down and presently, with no more ideas to exchange, grew silent listening for the returning launch. It was a listening so wrapt that the room became as still as a picture and they as motionless as pictured figures. The ticking of the clock was audible, the sucking clinking sounds of the water along the shore. The significance of what they awaited grew with the minutes till the coming of the launch seemed an event of fearful import upon which their fates hung. The entrance of Williams shook them from their terrors. If his face told them nothing, his manner was kindly gruff--they must be tired, best thing for them to go to bed. As they rose and trailed limply to the doors he beckoned Shine to remain. He would want him later, had a job for him, so he’d better go now and get some sleep. His room was on that floor, the butler’s? All right, he’d find him. Shine departed, grateful. He was half-dead with sleep, but had kept it hidden as he had his hunger, regarding both as unmanly weaknesses in the hour of calamity.