The large reward
offered by Mr. Voss for the recovery of his son's remains kept
hundreds of fishermen and others who frequented the river banks and
shores of the bay leading down to the ocean on the alert. As the
spring opened and the ice began to give way and float, these men
examined every inlet, cove and bar where the tide in its ebb and
flow might possibly have left the body for which they were in
search; and one day, late in the month of March, they found it,
three miles away from the city, where it had drifted by the current.
The long-accepted theory of the young man's death was proved by this
recovery of his body. No violence was found upon it. The diamond pin
had not been taken from his shirt-bosom, nor the gold watch from his
pocket. On the dial of his watch the hands, stopping their movement
as the chill of the icy water struck the delicate machinery, had
recorded the hour of his death--ten minutes to one o'clock.
It was not possible, under the strain of such an affliction and the
wear of a suspense that no human heart was able to endure without
waste of life, for one in feeble health like Mrs. Voss to hold her
own. Friends read in her patient face and quiet mouth, and eyes that
had a far-away look, the signs of a coming change that could not be
very far off.
After the sad certainty came and the looking and longing and waiting
were over, after the solemn services of the church had been said and
the cast-off earthly garments of her precious boy hidden away from
sight for ever, the mother's hold upon life grew feebler every day.
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