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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Frozen Deep, by Wilkie Collins
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Frozen Deep
+
+Author: Wilkie Collins
+
+Posting Date: October 5, 2008 [EBook #1625]
+Release Date: February, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FROZEN DEEP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by James Rusk
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FROZEN DEEP
+
+by Wilkie Collins
+
+
+
+
+First Scene--The Ball-room
+
+
+
+Chapter 1.
+
+The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an English
+sea-port. The time is night. And the business of the moment is--dancing.
+
+The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, in
+celebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from their port.
+The ships of the expedition are two in number--the _Wanderer_ and the
+_Sea-mew_. They are to sail (in search of the Northwest Passage) on the
+next day, with the morning tide.
+
+Honor to the Mayor and Corporation! It is a brilliant ball. The band is
+complete. The room is spacious. The large conservatory opening out of it
+is pleasantly lighted with Chinese lanterns, and beautifully decorated
+with shrubs and flowers. All officers of the army and navy who are
+present wear their uniforms in honor of the occasion. Among the ladies,
+the display of dresses (a subject which the men don't understand) is
+bewildering--and the average of beauty (a subject which the men do
+understand) is the highest average attainable, in all parts of the room.
+
+For the moment, the dance which is in progress is a quadrille. General
+admiration selects two of the ladies who are dancing as its favorite
+objects. One is a dark beauty in the prime of womanhood--the wife of
+First Lieutenant Crayford, of the _Wanderer_. The other is a young girl,
+pale and delicate; dressed simply in white; with no ornament on her head
+but her own lovely brown hair. This is Miss Clara Burnham--an orphan.
+She is Mrs. Crayford's dearest friend, and she is to stay with Mrs.
+Crayford during the lieutenant's absence in the Arctic regions. She
+is now dancing, with the lieutenant himself for partner, and with Mrs.
+Crayford and Captain Helding (commanding officer of the _Wanderer_) for
+vis-a-vis--in plain English, for opposite couple.
+
+The conversation between Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford, in one
+of the intervals of the dance, turns on Miss Burnham. The captain is
+greatly interested in Clara. He admires her beauty; but he thinks her
+manner--for a young girl--strangely serious and subdued. Is she in
+delicate health?
+
+Mrs. Crayford shakes her head; sighs mysteriously; and answers,
+
+"In _very_ delicate health, Captain Helding."
+
+"Consumptive?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"I am glad to hear that. She is a charming creature, Mrs. Crayford. She
+interests me indescribably. If I was only twenty years younger--perhaps
+(as I am not twenty years younger) I had better not finish the sentence?
+Is it indiscreet, my dear lady, to inquire what _is_ the matter with
+her?"
+
+"It might be indiscreet, on the part of a stranger," said Mrs. Crayford.
+"An old friend like you may make any inquiries. I wish I could tell
+you what is the matter with Clara. It is a mystery to the doctors
+themselves. Some of the mischief is due, in my humble opinion, to the
+manner in which she has been brought up."
+
+"Ay! ay! A bad school, I suppose."
+
+"Very bad, Captain Helding. But not the sort of school which you have in
+your mind at this moment. Clara's early years were spent in a lonely old
+house in the Highlands of Scotland. The ignorant people about her were
+the people who did the mischief which I have just been speaking of.
+They filled her mind with the superstitions which are still respected as
+truths in the wild North--especially the superstition called the Second
+Sight."
+
+"God bless me!" cried the captain, "you don't mean to say she believes
+in such stuff as that? In these enlightened times too!"
+
+Mrs. Crayford looked at her partner with a satirical smile.
+
+"In these enlightened times, Captain Helding, we only believe in dancing
+tables, and in messages sent from the other world by spirits who can't
+spell! By comparison with such superstitions as these, even the Second
+Sight has something--in the shape of poetry--to recommend it, surely?
+Estimate for yourself," she continued seriously, "the effect of
+such surroundings as I have described on a delicate, sensitive young
+creature--a girl with a naturally imaginative temperament leading a
+lonely, neglected life. Is it so very surprising that she should
+catch the infection of the superstition about her? And is it quite
+incomprehensible that her nervous system should suffer accordingly, at a
+very critical period of her life?"
+
+"Not at all, Mrs. Crayford--not at all, ma'am, as you put it. Still it
+is a little startling, to a commonplace man like me, to meet a young
+lady at a ball who believes in the Second Sight. Does she really profess
+to see into the future? Am I to understand that she positively falls
+into a trance, and sees people in distant countries, and foretells
+events to come? That is the Second Sight, is it not?"
+
+"That is the Second Sight, captain. And that is, really and positively,
+what she does."
+
+"The young lady who is dancing opposite to us?"
+
+"The young lady who is dancing opposite to us."
+
+The captain waited a little--letting the new flood of information which
+had poured in on him settle itself steadily in his mind. This process
+accomplished, the Arctic explorer proceeded resolutely on his way to
+further discoveries.
+
+"May I ask, ma'am, if you have ever seen her in a state of trance with
+your own eyes?" he inquired.
+
+"My sister and I both saw her in the trance, little more than a month
+since," Mrs. Crayford replied. "She had been nervous and irritable all
+the morning; and we took her out into the garden to breathe the fresh
+air. Suddenly, without any reason for it, the color left her face. She
+stood between us, insensible to touch, insensible to sound; motionless
+as stone, and cold as death in a moment. The first change we noticed
+came after a lapse of some minutes. Her hands began to move slowly, as
+if she was groping in the dark. Words dropped one by one from her lips,
+in a lost, vacant tone, as if she was talking in her sleep. Whether
+what she said referred to past or future I cannot tell you. She spoke of
+persons in a foreign country--perfect strangers to my sister and to me.
+After a little interval, she suddenly became silent. A momentary color
+appeared in her face, and left it again. Her eyes closed--her feet
+failed her--and she sank insensible into our arms."
+
+"Sank insensible into your arms," repeated the captain, absorbing his
+new information. "Most extraordinary! And--in this state of health--she
+goes out to parties, and dances. More extraordinary still!"
+
+"You are entirely mistaken," said Mrs. Crayford. "She is only here
+to-night to please me; and she is only dancing to please my husband.
+As a rule, she shuns all society. The doctor recommends change and
+amusement for her. She won't listen to him. Except on rare occasions
+like this, she persists in remaining at home."
+
+Captain Helding brightened at the allusion to the doctor. Something
+practical might be got out of the doctor. Scientific man. Sure to see
+this very obscure subject under a new light. "How does it strike the
+doctor now?" said the captain. "Viewed simply as a Case, ma'am, how does
+it strike the doctor?"
+
+"He will give no positive opinion," Mrs. Crayford answered. "He told
+me that such cases as Clara's were by no means unfamiliar to medical
+practice. 'We know,' he told me, 'that certain disordered conditions of
+the brain and the nervous system produce results quite as extraordinary
+as any that you have described--and there our knowledge ends. Neither my
+science nor any man's science can clear up the mystery in this case.
+It is an especially difficult case to deal with, because Miss Burnham's
+early associations dispose her to attach a superstitious importance to
+the malady--the hysterical malady as some doctors would call it--from
+which she suffers. I can give you instructions for preserving her
+general health; and I can recommend you to try some change in her
+life--provided you first relieve her mind of any secret anxieties that
+may possibly be preying on it.'"
+
+The captain smiled self-approvingly. The doctor had justified his
+anticipations. The doctor had suggested a practical solution of the
+difficulty.
+
+"Ay! ay! At last we have hit the nail on the head! Secret anxieties.
+Yes! yes! Plain enough now. A disappointment in love--eh, Mrs.
+Crayford?"
+
+"I don't know, Captain Helding; I am quite in the dark. Clara's
+confidence in me--in other matters unbounded--is, in this matter of her
+(supposed) anxieties, a confidence still withheld. In all else we are
+like sisters. I sometimes fear there may indeed be some trouble
+preying secretly on her mind. I sometimes feel a little hurt at her
+incomprehensible silence."
+
+Captain Helding was ready with his own practical remedy for this
+difficulty.
+
+"Encouragement is all she wants, ma'am. Take my word for it, this
+matter rests entirely with you. It's all in a nutshell. Encourage her to
+confide in you--and she _will_ confide."
+
+"I am waiting to encourage her, captain, until she is left alone with
+me--after you have all sailed for the Arctic seas. In the meantime, will
+you consider what I have said to you as intended for your ear only? And
+will you forgive me, if I own that the turn the subject has taken does
+not tempt me to pursue it any further?"
+
+The captain took the hint. He instantly changed the subject; choosing,
+on this occasion, safe professional topics. He spoke of ships that were
+ordered on foreign service; and, finding that these as subjects failed
+to interest Mrs. Crayford, he spoke next of ships that were ordered home
+again. This last experiment produced its effect--an effect which the
+captain had not bargained for.
+
+"Do you know," he began, "that the _Atalanta_ is expected back from the
+West Coast of Africa every day? Have you any acquaintances among the
+officers of that ship?"
+
+As it so happened, he put those questions to Mrs. Crayford while they
+were engaged in one of the figures of the dance which brought them
+within hearing of the opposite couple. At the same moment--to the
+astonishment of her friends and admirers--Miss Clara Burnham threw the
+quadrille into confusion by making a mistake! Everybody waited to see
+her set the mistake right. She made no attempt to set it right--she
+turned deadly pale and caught her partner by the arm.
+
+"The heat!" she said, faintly. "Take me away--take me into the air!"
+
+Lieutenant Crayford instantly led her out of the dance, and took her
+into the cool and empty conservatory, at the end of the room. As a
+matter of course, Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford left the quadrille
+at the same time. The captain saw his way to a joke.
+
+"Is this the trance coming on?" he whispered. "If it is, as commander
+of the Arctic expedition, I have a particular request to make. Will
+the Second Sight oblige me by seeing the shortest way to the Northwest
+Passage, before we leave England?"
+
+Mrs. Crayford declined to humor the joke. "If you will excuse my leaving
+you," she said quietly, "I will try and find out what is the matter with
+Miss Burnham."
+
+At the entrance to the conservatory, Mrs. Crayford encountered her
+husband. The lieutenant was of middle age, tall and comely. A man with
+a winning simplicity and gentleness in his manner, and an irresistible
+kindness in his brave blue eyes. In one word, a man whom everybody
+loved--including his wife.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," said the lieutenant. "The heat has overcome
+her--that's all."
+
+Mrs. Crayford shook her head, and looked at her husband, half
+satirically, half fondly.
+
+"You dear old innocent!" she exclaimed, "that excuse may do for _you_.
+For my part, I don't believe a word of it. Go and get another partner,
+and leave Clara to me."
+
+She entered the conservatory and seated herself by Clara's side.
+
+
+
+Chapter 2.
+
+
+"Now, my dear!" Mrs. Crayford began, "what does this mean?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That won't do, Clara. Try again."
+
+"The heat of the room--"
+
+"That won't do, either. Say that you choose to keep your own secrets,
+and I shall understand what you mean."
+
+Clara's sad, clear gray eyes looked up for the first time in Mrs.
+Crayford's face, and suddenly became dimmed with tears.
+
+"If I only dared tell you!" she murmured. "I hold so to your good
+opinion of me, Lucy--and I am so afraid of losing it."
+
+Mrs. Crayford's manner changed. Her eyes rested gravely and anxiously on
+Clara's face.
+
+"You know as well as I do that nothing can shake my affection for you,"
+she said. "Do justice, my child, to your old friend. There is nobody
+here to listen to what we say. Open your heart, Clara. I see you are in
+trouble, and I want to comfort you."
+
+Clara began to yield. In other words, she began to make conditions.
+
+"Will you promise to keep what I tell you a secret from every living
+creature?" she began.
+
+Mrs. Crayford met that question, by putting a question on her side.
+
+"Does 'every living creature' include my husband?"
+
+"Your husband more than anybody! I love him, I revere him. He is so
+noble; he is so good! If I told him what I am going to tell you, he
+would despise me. Own it plainly, Lucy, if I am asking too much in
+asking you to keep a secret from your husband."
+
+"Nonsense, child! When you are married, you will know that the easiest
+of all secrets to keep is a secret from your husband. I give you my
+promise. Now begin!"
+
+Clara hesitated painfully.
+
+"I don't know how to begin!" she exclaimed, with a burst of despair.
+"The words won't come to me."
+
+"Then I must help you. Do you feel ill tonight? Do you feel as you felt
+that day when you were with my sister and me in the garden?"
+
+"Oh no."
+
+"You are not ill, you are not really affected by the heat--and yet you
+turn as pale as ashes, and you are obliged to leave the quadrille! There
+must be some reason for this."
+
+"There is a reason. Captain Helding--"
+
+"Captain Helding! What in the name of wonder has the captain to do with
+it?"
+
+"He told you something about the _Atalanta_. He said the _Atalanta_ was
+expected back from Africa immediately."
+
+"Well, and what of that? Is there anybody in whom you are interested
+coming home in the ship?"
+
+"Somebody whom I am afraid of is coming home in the ship."
+
+Mrs. Crayford's magnificent black eyes opened wide in amazement.
+
+"My dear Clara! do you really mean what you say?"
+
+"Wait a little, Lucy, and you shall judge for yourself. We must go
+back--if I am to make you understand me--to the year before we knew each
+other--to the last year of my father's life. Did I ever tell you that my
+father moved southward, for the sake of his health, to a house in Kent
+that was lent to him by a friend?"
+
+"No, my dear; I don't remember ever hearing of the house in Kent. Tell
+me about it."
+
+"There is nothing to tell, except this: the new house was near a fine
+country-seat standing in its own park. The owner of the place was
+a gentleman named Wardour. He, too, was one of my father's Kentish
+friends. He had an only son."
+
+She paused, and played nervously with her fan. Mrs. Crayford looked at
+her attentively. Clara's eyes remained fixed on her fan--Clara said no
+more. "What was the son's name?" asked Mrs. Crayford, quietly.
+
+"Richard."
+
+"Am I right, Clara, in suspecting that Mr. Richard Wardour admired you?"
+
+The question produced its intended effect. The question helped Clara to
+go on.
+
+"I hardly knew at first," she said, "whether he admired me or not.
+He was very strange in his ways--headstrong, terribly headstrong and
+passionate; but generous and affectionate in spite of his faults of
+temper. Can you understand such a character?"
+
+"Such characters exist by thousands. I have my faults of temper. I begin
+to like Richard already. Go on."
+
+"The days went by, Lucy, and the weeks went by. We were thrown very
+much together. I began, little by little, to have some suspicion of the
+truth."
+
+"And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course?"
+
+"No. He was not--unhappily for me--he was not that sort of man. He never
+spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I who saw it. I
+couldn't help seeing it. I did all I could to show that I was willing to
+be a sister to him, and that I could never be anything else. He did not
+understand me, or he would not, I can't say which."
+
+"'Would not,' is the most likely, my dear. Go on."
+
+"It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough bashfulness
+about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke out. He seemed
+to treat me as if our future lives had been provided for while we were
+children. What could I do, Lucy?"
+
+"Do? You could have asked your father to end the difficulty for you."
+
+"Impossible! You forget what I have just told you. My father was
+suffering at that time under the illness which afterward caused his
+death. He was quite unfit to interfere."
+
+"Was there no one else who could help you?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"No lady in whom you could confide?"
+
+"I had acquaintances among the ladies in the neighborhood. I had no
+friends."
+
+"What did you do, then?"
+
+"Nothing. I hesitated; I put off coming to an explanation with him,
+unfortunately, until it was too late."
+
+"What do you mean by too late?"
+
+"You shall hear. I ought to have told you that Richard Wardour is in the
+navy--"
+
+"Indeed! I am more interested in him than ever. Well?"
+
+"One spring day Richard came to our house to take leave of us before he
+joined his ship. I thought he was gone, and I went into the next room.
+It was my own sitting-room, and it opened on to the garden."--
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Richard must have been watching me. He suddenly appeared in the garden.
+Without waiting for me to invite him, he walked into the room. I was a
+little startled as well as surprised, but I managed to hide it. I said,
+'What is it, Mr. Wardour?' He stepped close up to me; he said, in his
+quick, rough way: 'Clara! I am going to the African coast. If I live,
+I shall come back promoted; and we both know what will happen then.'
+He kissed me. I was half frightened, half angry. Before I could compose
+myself to say a word, he was out in the garden again--he was gone! I
+ought to have spoken, I know. It was not honorable, not kind toward him.
+You can't reproach me for my want of courage and frankness more bitterly
+than I reproach myself!"
+
+"My dear child, I don't reproach you. I only think you might have
+written to him."
+
+"I did write."
+
+"Plainly?"
+
+"Yes. I told him in so many words that he was deceiving himself, and
+that I could never marry him."
+
+"Plain enough, in all conscience! Having said that, surely you are not
+to blame. What are you fretting about now?"
+
+"Suppose my letter has never reached him?"
+
+"Why should you suppose anything of the sort?"
+
+"What I wrote required an answer, Lucy--_asked_ for an answer. The
+answer has never come. What is the plain conclusion? My letter has never
+reached him. And the _Atalanta_ is expected back! Richard Wardour is
+returning to England--Richard Wardour will claim me as his wife! You
+wondered just now if I really meant what I said. Do you doubt it still?"
+
+Mrs. Crayford leaned back absently in her chair. For the first time
+since the conversation had begun, she let a question pass without making
+a reply. The truth is, Mrs. Crayford was thinking.
+
+She saw Clara's position plainly; she understood the disturbing effect
+of it on the mind of a young girl. Still, making all allowances,
+she felt quite at a loss, so far, to account for Clara's excessive
+agitation. Her quick observing faculty had just detected that Clara's
+face showed no signs of relief, now that she had unburdened herself
+of her secret. There was something clearly under the surface
+here--something of importance that still remained to be discovered. A
+shrewd doubt crossed Mrs. Crayford's mind, and inspired the next words
+which she addressed to her young friend.
+
+"My dear," she said abruptly, "have you told me all?"
+
+Clara started as if the question terrified her. Feeling sure that she
+now had the clew in her hand, Mrs. Crayford deliberately repeated her
+question, in another form of words. Instead of answering, Clara suddenly
+looked up. At the same moment a faint flush of color appeared in her
+face for the first time.
+
+Looking up instinctively on her side, Mrs. Crayford became aware of the
+presence, in the conservatory, of a young gentleman who was claiming
+Clara as his partner in the coming waltz. Mrs. Crayford fell into
+thinking once more. Had this young gentleman (she asked herself)
+anything to do with the untold end of the story? Was this the true
+secret of Clara Burnham's terror at the impending return of Richard
+Wardour? Mrs. Crayford decided on putting her doubts to the test.
+
+"A friend of yours, my dear?" she asked, innocently. "Suppose you
+introduce us to each other."
+
+Clara confusedly introduced the young gentleman.
+
+"Mr. Francis Aldersley, Lucy. Mr. Aldersley belongs to the Arctic
+expedition."
+
+"Attached to the expedition?" Mrs. Crayford repeated. "I am attached
+to the expedition too--in my way. I had better introduce myself, Mr.
+Aldersley, as Clara seems to have forgotten to do it for me. I am Mrs.
+Crayford. My husband is Lieutenant Crayford, of the _Wanderer_. Do you
+belong to that ship?"
+
+"I have not the honor, Mrs. Crayford. I belong to the _Sea-mew_."
+
+Mrs. Crayford's superb eyes looked shrewdly backward and forward between
+Clara and Francis Aldersley, and saw the untold sequel to Clara's story.
+The young officer was a bright, handsome, gentleman-like lad. Just the
+person to seriously complicate the difficulty with Richard Wardour!
+There was no time for making any further inquiries. The band had begun
+the prelude to the waltz, and Francis Aldersley was waiting for his
+partner. With a word of apology to the young man, Mrs. Crayford drew
+Clara aside for a moment, and spoke to her in a whisper.
+
+"One word, my dear, before you return to the ball-room. It may sound
+conceited, after the little you have told me; but I think I understand
+your position _now_, better than you do yourself. Do you want to hear my
+opinion?"
+
+"I am longing to hear it, Lucy! I want your opinion; I want your
+advice."
+
+"You shall have both in the plainest and fewest words. First, my
+opinion: You have no choice but to come to an explanation with Mr.
+Wardour as soon as he returns. Second, my advice: If you wish to make
+the explanation easy to both sides, take care that you make it in the
+character of a free woman."
+
+She laid a strong emphasis on the last three words, and looked pointedly
+at Francis Aldersley as she pronounced them. "I won't keep you from your
+partner any longer, Clara," she resumed, and led the way back to the
+ball-room.
+
+
+
+Chapter 3.
+
+
+The burden on Clara's mind weighs on it more heavily than ever, after
+what Mrs. Crayford has said to her. She is too unhappy to feel the
+inspiriting influence of the dance. After a turn round the room, she
+complains of fatigue. Mr. Francis Aldersley looks at the conservatory
+(still as invitingly cool and empty as ever); leads her back to it;
+and places her on a seat among the shrubs. She tries--very feebly--to
+dismiss him.
+
+"Don't let me keep you from dancing, Mr. Aldersley."
+
+He seats himself by her side, and feasts his eyes on the lovely downcast
+face that dares not turn toward him. He whispers to her:
+
+"Call me Frank."
+
+She longs to call him Frank--she loves him with all her heart. But Mrs.
+Crayford's warning words are still in her mind. She never opens her
+lips. Her lover moves a little closer, and asks another favor. Men are
+all alike on these occasions. Silence invariably encourages them to try
+again.
+
+"Clara! have you forgotten what I said at the concert yesterday? May I
+say it again?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"We sail to-morrow for the Arctic seas. I may not return for years.
+Don't send me away without hope! Think of the long, lonely time in the
+dark North! Make it a happy time for _me_."
+
+Though he speaks with the fervor of a man, he is little more than a lad:
+he is only twenty years old, and he is going to risk his young life on
+the frozen deep! Clara pities him as she never pitied any human creature
+before. He gently takes her hand. She tries to release it.
+
+"What! not even that little favor on the last night?"
+
+Her faithful heart takes his part, in spite of her. Her hand remains in
+his, and feels its soft persuasive pressure. She is a lost woman. It is
+only a question of time now!
+
+"Clara! do you love me?"
+
+There is a pause. She shrinks from looking at him--she trembles with
+strange contradictory sensations of pleasure and pain. His arm steals
+round her; he repeats his question in a whisper; his lips almost touch
+her little rosy ear as he says it again:
+
+"Do you love me?"
+
+She closes her eyes faintly--she hears nothing but those words--feels
+nothing but his arm round her--forgets Mrs. Crayford's warning--forgets
+Richard Wardour himself--turns suddenly, with a loving woman's desperate
+disregard of everything but her love--nestles her head on his bosom, and
+answers him in that way, at last!
+
+He lifts the beautiful drooping head--their lips meet in their first
+kiss--they are both in heaven: it is Clara who brings them back to earth
+again with a start--it is Clara who says, "Oh! what have I done?"--as
+usual, when it is too late.
+
+Frank answers the question.
+
+"You have made me happy, my angel. Now, when I come back, I come back to
+make you my wife."
+
+She shudders. She remembers Richard Wardour again at those words.
+
+"Mind!" she says, "nobody is to know we are engaged till I permit you to
+mention it. Remember that!"
+
+He promises to remember it. His arm tries to wind round her once
+more. No! She is mistress of herself; she can positively dismiss him
+now--after she has let him kiss her!
+
+"Go!" she says. "I want to see Mrs. Crayford. Find her! Say I am here,
+waiting to speak to her. Go at once, Frank--for my sake!"
+
+There is no alternative but to obey her. His eyes drink a last draught
+of her beauty. He hurries away on his errand--the happiest man in the
+room. Five minutes since she was only his partner in the dance. He has
+spoken--and she has pledged herself to be his partner for life!
+
+
+
+Chapter 4.
+
+
+It was not easy to find Mrs. Crayford in the crowd. Searching here, and
+searching there, Frank became conscious of a stranger, who appeared
+to be looking for somebody, on his side. He was a dark, heavy-browed,
+strongly-built man, dressed in a shabby old naval officer's uniform.
+His manner--strikingly resolute and self-contained--was unmistakably
+the manner of a gentleman. He wound his way slowly through the crowd;
+stopping to look at every lady whom he passed, and then looking
+away again with a frown. Little by little he approached the
+conservatory--entered it, after a moment's reflection--detected the
+glimmer of a white dress in the distance, through the shrubs and
+flowers--advanced to get a nearer view of the lady--and burst into
+Clara's presence with a cry of delight.
+
+She sprang to her feet. She stood before him speechless, motionless,
+struck to stone. All her life was in her eyes--the eyes which told her
+she was looking at Richard Wardour.
+
+He was the first to speak.
+
+"I am sorry I startled you, my darling. I forgot everything but the
+happiness of seeing you again. We only reached our moorings two hours
+since. I was some time inquiring after you, and some time getting my
+ticket when they told me you were at the ball. Wish me joy, Clara! I am
+promoted. I have come back to make you my wife."
+
+A momentary change passed over the blank terror of her face. Her color
+rose faintly, her lips moved. She abruptly put a question to him.
+
+"Did you get my letter?"
+
+He started. "A letter from you? I never received it."
+
+The momentary animation died out of her face again. She drew back from
+him and dropped into a chair. He advanced toward her, astonished and
+alarmed. She shrank in the chair--shrank, as if she was frightened of
+him.
+
+"Clara, you have not even shaken hands with me! What does it mean?"
+
+He paused; waiting and watching her. She made no reply. A flash of the
+quick temper in him leaped up in his eyes. He repeated his last words in
+louder and sterner tones:
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+She replied this time. His tone had hurt her--his tone had roused her
+sinking courage.
+
+"It means, Mr. Wardour, that you have been mistaken from the first."
+
+"How have I been mistaken?"
+
+"You have been under a wrong impression, and you have given me no
+opportunity of setting you right."
+
+"In what way have I been wrong?"
+
+"You have been too hasty and too confident about yourself and about me.
+You have entirely misunderstood me. I am grieved to distress you,
+but for your sake I must speak plainly. I am your friend always, Mr.
+Wardour. I can never be your wife."
+
+He mechanically repeated the last words. He seemed to doubt whether he
+had heard her aright.
+
+"You can never be my wife?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+There was no answer. She was incapable of telling him a falsehood. She
+was ashamed to tell him the truth.
+
+He stooped over her, and suddenly possessed himself of her hand. Holding
+her hand firmly, he stooped a little lower; searching for the signs
+which might answer him in her face. His own face darkened slowly while
+he looked. He was beginning to suspect her; and he acknowledged it in
+his next words.
+
+"Something has changed you toward me, Clara. Somebody has influenced you
+against me. Is it--you force me to ask the question--is it some other
+man?"
+
+"You have no right to ask me that."
+
+He went on without noticing what she had said to him.
+
+"Has that other man come between you and me? I speak plainly on my side.
+Speak plainly on yours."
+
+"I _have_ spoken. I have nothing more to say."
+
+There was a pause. She saw the warning light which told of the fire
+within him, growing brighter and brighter in his eyes. She felt his
+grasp strengthening on her hand. He appealed to her for the last time.
+
+"Reflect," he said, "reflect before it is too late. Your silence will
+not serve you. If you persist in not answering me, I shall take your
+silence as a confession. Do you hear me?"
+
+"I hear you."
+
+"Clara Burnham! I am not to be trifled with. Clara Burnham! I insist on
+the truth. Are you false to me?"
+
+She resented that searching question with a woman's keen sense of the
+insult that is implied in doubting her to her face.
+
+"Mr. Wardour! you forget yourself when you call me to account in that
+way. I never encouraged you. I never gave you promise or pledge--"
+
+He passionately interrupted her before she could say more.
+
+"You have engaged yourself in my absence. Your words own it; your looks
+own it! You have engaged yourself to another man!"
+
+"If I _have_ engaged myself, what right have you to complain of it?" she
+answered firmly. "What right have you to control my actions--?"
+
+The next words died away on her lips. He suddenly dropped her hand. A
+marked change appeared in the expression of his eyes--a change which
+told her of the terrible passions that she had let loose in him. She
+read, dimly read, something in his face which made her tremble--not for
+herself, but for Frank.
+
+Little by little the dark color faded out of his face. His deep voice
+dropped suddenly to a low and quiet tone as he spoke the parting words.
+
+"Say no more, Miss Burnham--you have said enough. I am answered; I am
+dismissed." He paused, and, stepping close up to her, laid his hand on
+her arm.
+
+"The time may come," he said, "when I shall forgive you. But the man who
+has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met."
+
+He turned and left her.
+
+A few minutes later, Mrs. Crayford, entering the conservatory, was met
+by one of the attendants at the ball. The man stopped as if he wished to
+speak to her.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked.
+
+"I beg your pardon, ma'am. Do you happen to have a smelling-bottle about
+you? There is a young lady in the conservatory who is taken faint."
+
+
+
+
+Between the Scenes--The Landing Stage
+
+
+
+Chapter 5.
+
+
+The morning of the next day--the morning on which the ships were to
+sail--came bright and breezy. Mrs. Crayford, having arranged to follow
+her husband to the water-side, and see the last of him before he
+embarked, entered Clara's room on her way out of the house, anxious
+to hear how her young friend passed the night. To her astonishment she
+found Clara had risen, and was dressed, like herself, to go out.
+
+"What does this mean, my dear? After what you suffered last night--after
+the shock of seeing that man--why don't you take my advice and rest in
+your bed?"
+
+"I can't rest. I have not slept all night. Have you been out yet?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you seen or heard anything of Richard Wardour?"
+
+"What an extraordinary question!"
+
+"Answer my question! Don't trifle with me!"
+
+"Compose yourself, Clara. I have neither seen nor heard anything of
+Richard Wardour. Take my word for it, he is far enough away by this
+time."
+
+"No! He is here! He is near us! All night long the presentiment has
+pursued me--Frank and Richard Wardour will meet."
+
+"My dear child! what are you thinking of? They are total strangers to
+each other."
+
+"Something will happen to bring them together. I feel it! I know it!
+They will meet--there will be a mortal quarrel between them--and I shall
+be to blame. Oh, Lucy! why didn't I take your advice? Why was I
+mad enough to let Frank know that I loved him? Are you going to the
+landing-stage? I am all ready--I must go with you."
+
+"You must not think of it, Clara. There will be crowding and confusion
+at the water-side. You are not strong enough to bear it. Wait--I won't
+be long away--wait till I come back."
+
+"I must and will go with you! Crowd? _He_ will be among the crowd!
+Confusion? In that confusion _he_ will find his way to Frank! Don't ask
+me to wait. I shall go mad if I wait. I shall not know a moment's ease
+until I have seen Frank, with my own eyes, safe in the boat which takes
+him to his ship! You have got your bonnet on; what are we stopping here
+for? Come! or I shall go without you. Look at the clock; we have not a
+moment to lose!"
+
+It was useless to contend with her. Mrs. Crayford yielded. The two women
+left the house together.
+
+The landing-stage, as Mrs. Crayford had predicted, was thronged with
+spectators. Not only the relatives and friends of the Arctic voyagers,
+but strangers as well, had assembled in large numbers to see the ships
+sail. Clara's eyes wandered affrightedly hither and thither among the
+strange faces in the crowd; searching for the one face that she dreaded
+to see, and not finding it. So completely were her nerves unstrung, that
+she started with a cry of alarm on suddenly hearing Frank's voice behind
+her.
+
+"The _Sea-mew_'s boats are waiting," he said. "I must go, darling. How
+pale you are looking, Clara! Are you ill?"
+
+She never answered. She questioned him with wild eyes and trembling
+lips.
+
+"Has anything happened to you, Frank? anything out of the common?"
+
+Frank laughed at the strange question.
+
+"Anything out of the common?" he repeated. "Nothing that I know
+of, except sailing for the Arctic seas. That's out of the common, I
+suppose--isn't it?"
+
+"Has anybody spoken to you since last night? Has any stranger followed
+you in the street?"
+
+Frank turned in blank amazement to Mrs. Crayford.
+
+"What on earth does she mean?"
+
+Mrs. Crayford's lively invention supplied her with an answer on the spur
+of the moment.
+
+"Do you believe in dreams, Frank? Of course you don't! Clara has been
+dreaming about you; and Clara is foolish enough to believe in dreams.
+That's all--it's not worth talking about. Hark! they are calling you.
+Say good-by, or you will be too late for the boat."
+
+Frank took Clara's hand. Long afterward--in the dark Arctic days, in the
+dreary Arctic nights--he remembered how coldly and how passively that
+hand lay in his.
+
+"Courage, Clara!" he said, gayly. "A sailor's sweetheart must accustom
+herself to partings. The time will soon pass. Good-by, my darling!
+Good-by, my wife!"
+
+He kissed the cold hand; he looked his last--for many a long year,
+perhaps!--at the pale and beautiful face. "How she loves me!" he
+thought. "How the parting distresses her!" He still held her hand; he
+would have lingered longer, if Mrs. Crayford had not wisely waived all
+ceremony and pushed him away.
+
+The two ladies followed him at a safe distance through the crowd, and
+saw him step into the boat. The oars struck the water; Frank waved his
+cap to Clara. In a moment more a vessel at anchor hid the boat from
+view. They had seen the last of him on his way to the Frozen Deep!
+
+"No Richard Wardour in the boat," said Mrs. Crayford. "No Richard
+Wardour on the shore. Let this be a lesson to you, my dear. Never be
+foolish enough to believe in presentiments again."
+
+Clara's eyes still wandered suspiciously to and fro among the crowd.
+
+"Are you not satisfied yet?" asked Mrs. Crayford.
+
+"No," Clara answered, "I am not satisfied yet."
+
+"What! still looking for him? This is really too absurd. Here is my
+husband coming. I shall tell him to call a cab, and send you home."
+
+Clara drew back a few steps.
+
+"I won't be in the way, Lucy, while you are taking leave of your good
+husband," she said. "I will wait here."
+
+"Wait here! What for?"
+
+"For something which I may yet see; or for something which I may still
+hear."
+
+"Richard Wardour?"
+
+"Richard Wardour."
+
+Mrs. Crayford turned to her husband without another word. Clara's
+infatuation was beyond the reach of remonstrance.
+
+The boats of the _Wanderer_ took the place at the landing-stage vacated
+by the boats of the _Sea-mew_. A burst of cheering among the outer ranks
+of the crowd announced the arrival of the commander of the expedition
+on the scene. Captain Helding appeared, looking right and left for his
+first lieutenant. Finding Crayford with his wife, the captain made his
+apologies for interfering, with his best grace.
+
+"Give him up to his professional duties for one minute, Mrs. Crayford,
+and you shall have him back again for half an hour. The Arctic
+expedition is to blame, my dear lady--not the captain--for parting man
+and wife. In Crayford's place, I should have left it to the bachelors to
+find the Northwest Passage, and have stopped at home with you!"
+
+Excusing himself in those bluntly complimentary terms, Captain Helding
+drew the lieutenant aside a few steps, accidentally taking a direction
+that led the two officers close to the place at which Clara was
+standing. Both the captain and the lieutenant were too completely
+absorbed in their professional business to notice her. Neither the one
+nor the other had the faintest suspicion that she could and did hear
+every word of the talk that passed between them.
+
+"You received my note this morning?" the captain began.
+
+"Certainly, Captain Helding, or I should have been on board the ship
+before this."
+
+"I am going on board myself at once," the captain proceeded, "but I must
+ask you to keep your boat waiting for half an hour more. You will be all
+the longer with your wife, you know. I thought of that, Crayford."
+
+"I am much obliged to you, Captain Helding. I suppose there is some
+other reason for inverting the customary order of things, and keeping
+the lieutenant on shore after the captain is on board?"
+
+"Quite true! there _is_ another reason. I want you to wait for a
+volunteer who has just joined us."
+
+"A volunteer!"
+
+"Yes. He has his outfit to get in a hurry, and he may be half an hour
+late."
+
+"It's rather a sudden appointment, isn't it?"
+
+"No doubt. Very sudden."
+
+"And--pardon me--it's rather a long time (as we are situated) to keep
+the ships waiting for one man?"
+
+"Quite true, again. But a man who is worth having is worth waiting for.
+This man is worth having; this man is worth his weight in gold to such
+an expedition as ours. Seasoned to all climates and all fatigues--a
+strong fellow, a brave fellow, a clever fellow--in short, an excellent
+officer. I know him well, or I should never have taken him. The country
+gets plenty of work out of my new volunteer, Crayford. He only returned
+yesterday from foreign service."
+
+"He only returned yesterday from foreign service! And he volunteers this
+morning to join the Arctic expedition? You astonish me."
+
+"I dare say I do! You can't be more astonished than I was, when he
+presented himself at my hotel and told me what he wanted. 'Why, my good
+fellow, you have just got home,' I said. 'Are you weary of your freedom,
+after only a few hours' experience of it?' His answer rather startled
+me. He said, 'I am weary of my life, sir. I have come home and found
+a trouble to welcome me, which goes near to break my heart. If I don't
+take refuge in absence and hard work, I am a lost man. Will you give me
+a refuge?' That's what he said, Crayford, word for word."
+
+"Did you ask him to explain himself further?"
+
+"Not I! I knew his value, and I took the poor devil on the spot, without
+pestering him with any more questions. No need to ask him to explain
+himself. The facts speak for themselves in these cases. The old story,
+my good friend! There's a woman at the bottom of it, of course."
+
+
+Mrs. Crayford, waiting for the return of her husband as patiently as she
+could, was startled by feeling a hand suddenly laid on her shoulder.
+She looked round, and confronted Clara. Her first feeling of surprise
+changed instantly to alarm. Clara was trembling from head to foot.
+
+"What is the matter? What has frightened you, my dear?"
+
+"Lucy! I _have_ heard of him!"
+
+"Richard Wardour again?"
+
+"Remember what I told you. I have heard every word of the conversation
+between Captain Helding and your husband. A man came to the captain this
+morning and volunteered to join the _Wanderer_. The captain has taken
+him. The man is Richard Wardour."
+
+"You don't mean it! Are you sure? Did you hear Captain Helding mention
+his name?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then how do you know it's Richard Wardour?"
+
+"Don't ask me! I am as certain of it, as that I am standing here! They
+are going away together, Lucy--away to the eternal ice and snow. My
+foreboding has come true! The two will meet--the man who is to marry me
+and the man whose heart I have broken!"
+
+"Your foreboding has _not_ come true, Clara! The men have not met
+here--the men are not likely to meet elsewhere. They are appointed
+to separate ships. Frank belongs to the _Sea-mew_, and Wardour to the
+_Wanderer_. See! Captain Helding has done. My husband is coming this
+way. Let me make sure. Let me speak to him."
+
+Lieutenant Crayford returned to his wife. She spoke to him instantly.
+
+"William! you have got a new volunteer who joins the _Wanderer_?"
+
+"What! you have been listening to the captain and me?"
+
+"I want to know his name?"
+
+"How in the world did you manage to hear what we said to each other?"
+
+"His name? has the captain given you his name?"
+
+"Don't excite yourself, my dear. Look! you are positively alarming Miss
+Burnham. The new volunteer is a perfect stranger to us. There is his
+name--last on the ship's list."
+
+Mrs. Crayford snatched the list out of her husband's hand, and read the
+name:
+
+"RICHARD WARDOUR."
+
+
+
+
+Second Scene--The Hut of the _Sea-mew_.
+
+
+
+Chapter 6.
+
+
+Good-by to England! Good-by to inhabited and civilized regions of the
+earth!
+
+Two years have passed since the voyagers sailed from their native
+shores. The enterprise has failed--the Arctic expedition is lost and
+ice-locked in the Polar wastes. The good ships _Wanderer_ and _Sea-mew_,
+entombed in ice, will never ride the buoyant waters more. Stripped of
+their lighter timbers, both vessels have been used for the construction
+of huts, erected on the nearest land.
+
+The largest of the two buildings which now shelter the lost men is
+occupied by the surviving officers and crew of the _Sea-mew_. On one
+side of the principal room are the sleeping berths and the fire-place.
+The other side discloses a broad doorway (closed by a canvas screen),
+which serves as a means of communication with an inner apartment,
+devoted to the superior officers. A hammock is slung to the rough
+raftered roof of the main room, as an extra bed. A man, completely
+hidden by his bedclothes, is sleeping in the hammock. By the fireside
+there is a second man--supposed to be on the watch--fast asleep, poor
+wretch! at the present moment. Behind the sleeper stands an old cask,
+which serves for a table. The objects at present on the table are, a
+pestle and mortar, and a saucepanful of the dry bones of animals--in
+plain words, the dinner for the day. By way of ornament to the dull
+brown walls, icicles appear in the crevices of the timber, gleaming at
+intervals in the red fire-light. No wind whistles outside the lonely
+dwelling--no cry of bird or beast is heard. Indoors, and out-of-doors,
+the awful silence of the Polar desert reigns, for the moment,
+undisturbed.
+
+
+
+Chapter 7.
+
+
+The first sound that broke the silence came from the inner apartment. An
+officer lifted the canvas screen in the hut of the _Sea-mew_ and entered
+the main room. Cold and privation had badly thinned the ranks. The
+commander of the ship--Captain Ebsworth--was dangerously ill. The first
+lieutenant was dead. An officer of the _Wanderer_ filled their places
+for the time, with Captain Helding's permission. The officer so employed
+was--Lieutenant Crayford.
+
+He approached the man at the fireside, and awakened him.
+
+"Jump up, Bateson! It's your turn to be relieved."
+
+The relief appeared, rising from a heap of old sails at the back of the
+hut. Bateson vanished, yawning, to his bed. Lieutenant Crayford walked
+backward and forward briskly, trying what exercise would do toward
+warming his blood.
+
+The pestle and mortar on the cask attracted his attention. He stopped
+and looked up at the man in the hammock.
+
+"I must rouse the cook," he said to himself, with a smile. "That fellow
+little thinks how useful he is in keeping up my spirits. The most
+inveterate croaker and grumbler in the world--and yet, according to his
+own account, the only cheerful man in the whole ship's company. John
+Want! John Want! Rouse up, there!"
+
+A head rose slowly out of the bedclothes, covered with a red night-cap.
+A melancholy nose rested itself on the edge of the hammock. A voice,
+worthy of the nose, expressed its opinion of the Arctic climate, in
+these words:
+
+"Lord! Lord! here's all my breath on my blanket. Icicles, if you please,
+sir, all round my mouth and all over my blanket. Every time I have
+snored, I've frozen something. When a man gets the cold into him to that
+extent that he ices his own bed, it can't last much longer. Never mind!
+_I_ don't grumble."
+
+Crayford tapped the saucepan of bones impatiently. John Want lowered
+himself to the floor--grumbling all the way--by a rope attached to the
+rafters at his bed head. Instead of approaching his superior officer
+and his saucepan, he hobbled, shivering, to the fire-place, and held his
+chin as close as he possibly could over the fire. Crayford looked after
+him.
+
+"Halloo! what are you doing there?"
+
+"Thawing my beard, sir."
+
+"Come here directly, and set to work on these bones."
+
+John Want remained immovably attached to the fire-place, holding
+something else over the fire. Crayford began to lose his temper.
+
+"What the devil are you about now?"
+
+"Thawing my watch, sir. It's been under my pillow all night, and the
+cold has stopped it. Cheerful, wholesome, bracing sort of climate to
+live in; isn't it, sir? Never mind! _I_ don't grumble."
+
+"No, we all know that. Look here! Are these bones pounded small enough?"
+
+John Want suddenly approached the lieutenant, and looked at him with an
+appearance of the deepest interest.
+
+"You'll excuse me, sir," he said; "how very hollow your voice sounds
+this morning!"
+
+"Never mind my voice. The bones! the bones!"
+
+"Yes, sir--the bones. They'll take a trifle more pounding. I'll do my
+best with them, sir, for your sake."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+John Want shook his head, and looked at Crayford with a dreary smile.
+
+"I don't think I shall have the honor of making much more bone soup for
+you, sir. Do you think yourself you'll last long, sir? I don't, saving
+your presence. I think about another week or ten days will do for us
+all. Never mind! _I_ don't grumble."
+
+He poured the bones into the mortar, and began to pound them--under
+protest. At the same moment a sailor appeared, entering from the inner
+hut.
+
+"A message from Captain Ebsworth, sir."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The captain is worse than ever with his freezing pains, sir. He wants
+to see you immediately."
+
+"I will go at once. Rouse the doctor."
+
+Answering in those terms, Crayford returned to the inner hut, followed
+by the sailor. John Want shook his head again, and smiled more drearily
+than ever.
+
+"Rouse the doctor?" he repeated. "Suppose the doctor should be frozen?
+He hadn't a ha'porth of warmth in him last night, and his voice sounded
+like a whisper in a speaking-trumpet. Will the bones do now? Yes, the
+bones will do now. Into the saucepan with you," cried John Want, suiting
+the action to the word, "and flavor the hot water if you can! When I
+remember that I was once an apprentice at a pastry-cook's--when I think
+of the gallons of turtle-soup that this hand has stirred up in a jolly
+hot kitchen--and when I find myself mixing bones and hot water for
+soup, and turning into ice as fast as I can; if I wasn't of a cheerful
+disposition I should feel inclined to grumble. John Want! John Want!
+whatever had you done with your natural senses when you made up your
+mind to go to sea?"
+
+A new voice hailed the cook, speaking from one of the bed-places in the
+side of the hut. It was the voice of Francis Aldersley.
+
+"Who's that croaking over the fire?"
+
+"Croaking?" repeated John Want, with the air of a man who considered
+himself the object of a gratuitous insult. "Croaking? You don't find
+your own voice at all altered for the worse--do you, Mr. Frank? I don't
+give _him_," John proceeded, speaking confidentially to himself, "more
+than six hours to last. He's one of your grumblers."
+
+"What are you doing there?" asked Frank.
+
+"I'm making bone soup, sir, and wondering why I ever went to sea."
+
+"Well, and why did you go to sea?"
+
+"I'm not certain, Mr. Frank. Sometimes I think it was natural
+perversity; sometimes I think it was false pride at getting over
+sea-sickness; sometimes I think it was reading 'Robinson Crusoe,' and
+books warning of me _not_ to go to sea."
+
+Frank laughed. "You're an odd fellow. What do you mean by false pride
+at getting over sea-sickness? Did you get over sea-sickness in some new
+way?"
+
+John Want's dismal face brightened in spite of himself. Frank had
+recalled to the cook's memory one of the noteworthy passages in the
+cook's life.
+
+"That's it, sir!" he said. "If ever a man cured sea-sickness in a
+new way yet, I am that man--I got over it, Mr. Frank, by dint of hard
+eating. I was a passenger on board a packet-boat, sir, when first I saw
+blue water. A nasty lopp of a sea came on at dinner-time, and I began
+to feel queer the moment the soup was put on the table. 'Sick?' says
+the captain. 'Rather, sir,' says I. 'Will you try my cure?' says the
+captain. 'Certainly, sir,' says I. 'Is your heart in your mouth yet?'
+says the captain. 'Not quite, sir,' says I. 'Mock-turtle soup?' says
+the captain, and helps me. I swallow a couple of spoonfuls, and turn as
+white as a sheet. The captain cocks his eye at me. 'Go on deck, sir,'
+says he; 'get rid of the soup, and then come back to the cabin.' I got
+rid of the soup, and came back to the cabin. 'Cod's head-and-shoulders,'
+says the captain, and helps me. 'I can't stand it, sir,' says I. 'You
+must,' says the captain, 'because it's the cure.' I crammed down a
+mouthful, and turned paler than ever. 'Go on deck,' says the captain.
+'Get rid of the cod's head, and come back to the cabin.' Off I go, and
+back I come. 'Boiled leg of mutton and trimmings,' says the captain, and
+helps me. 'No fat, sir,' says I. 'Fat's the cure,' says the captain, and
+makes me eat it. 'Lean's the cure,' says the captain, and makes me eat
+it. 'Steady?' says the captain. 'Sick,' says I. 'Go on deck,' says the
+captain; 'get rid of the boiled leg of mutton and trimmings and come
+back to the cabin.' Off I go, staggering--back I come, more dead than
+alive. 'Deviled kidneys,' says the captain. I shut my eyes, and got 'em
+down. 'Cure's beginning,' says the captain. 'Mutton-chop and pickles.'
+I shut my eyes, and got _them_ down. 'Broiled ham and cayenne pepper,'
+says the captain. 'Glass of stout and cranberry tart. Want to go on deck
+again?' 'No, sir,' says I. 'Cure's done,' says the captain. 'Never
+you give in to your stomach, and your stomach will end in giving in to
+you.'"
+
+Having stated the moral purpose of his story in those unanswerable
+words, John Want took himself and his saucepan into the kitchen.
+A moment later, Crayford returned to the hut and astonished Frank
+Aldersley by an unexpected question.
+
+"Have you anything in your berth, Frank, that you set a value on?"
+
+"Nothing that I set the smallest value on--when I am out of it," he
+replied. "What does your question mean?"
+
+"We are almost as short of fuel as we are of provisions," Crayford
+proceeded. "Your berth will make good firing. I have directed Bateson to
+be here in ten minutes with his ax."
+
+"Very attentive and considerate on your part," said Frank. "What is
+to become of me, if you please, when Bateson has chopped my bed into
+fire-wood?"
+
+"Can't you guess?"
+
+"I suppose the cold has stupefied me. The riddle is beyond my reading.
+Suppose you give me a hint?"
+
+"Certainly. There will be beds to spare soon--there is to be a change at
+last in our wretched lives here. Do you see it now?"
+
+Frank's eyes sparkled. He sprang out of his berth, and waved his fur cap
+in triumph.
+
+"See it?" he exclaimed; "of course I do! The exploring party is to start
+at last. Do I go with the expedition?"
+
+"It is not very long since you were in the doctor's hands, Frank," said
+Crayford, kindly. "I doubt if you are strong enough yet to make one of
+the exploring party."
+
+"Strong enough or not," returned Frank, "any risk is better than pining
+and perishing here. Put me down, Crayford, among those who volunteer to
+go."
+
+"Volunteers will not be accepted, in this case," said Crayford. "Captain
+Helding and Captain Ebsworth see serious objections, as we are situated,
+to that method of proceeding."
+
+"Do they mean to keep the appointments in their own hands?" asked Frank.
+"I for one object to that."
+
+"Wait a little," said Crayford. "You were playing backgammon the other
+day with one of the officers. Does the board belong to him or to you?"
+
+"It belongs to me. I have got it in my locker here. What do you want
+with it?"
+
+"I want the dice and the box for casting lots. The captains have
+arranged--most wisely, as I think--that Chance shall decide among us who
+goes with the expedition and who stays behind in the huts. The officers
+and crew of the _Wanderer_ will be here in a few minutes to cast the
+lots. Neither you nor any one can object to that way of deciding among
+us. Officers and men alike take their chance together. Nobody can
+grumble."
+
+"I am quite satisfied," said Frank. "But I know of one man among the
+officers who is sure to make objections."
+
+"Who is the man?"
+
+"You know him well enough, too. The 'Bear of the Expeditions' Richard
+Wardour."
+
+"Frank! Frank! you have a bad habit of letting your tongue run away with
+you. Don't repeat that stupid nickname when you talk of my good friend,
+Richard Wardour."
+
+"Your good friend? Crayford! your liking for that man amazes me."
+
+Crayford laid his hand kindly on Frank's shoulder. Of all the officers
+of the _Sea-mew_, Crayford's favorite was Frank.
+
+"Why should it amaze you?" he asked. "What opportunities have you had of
+judging? You and Wardour have always belonged to different ships. I have
+never seen you in Wardour's society for five minutes together. How can
+_you_ form a fair estimate of his character?"
+
+"I take the general estimate of his character," Frank answered. "He
+has got his nickname because he is the most unpopular man in his ship.
+Nobody likes him--there must be some reason for that."
+
+"There is only one reason for it," Crayford rejoined. "Nobody
+understands Richard Wardour. I am not talking at random. Remember,
+I sailed from England with him in the _Wanderer_; and I was only
+transferred to the _Sea-mew_ long after we were locked up in the ice. I
+was Richard Wardour's companion on board ship for months, and I learned
+there to do him justice. Under all his outward defects, I tell you,
+there beats a great and generous heart. Suspend your opinion, my lad,
+until you know my friend as well as I do. No more of this now. Give me
+the dice and the box."
+
+Frank opened his locker. At the same moment the silence of the
+snowy waste outside was broken by a shouting of voices hailing the
+hut--"_Sea-mew_, ahoy!"
+
+
+
+Chapter 8.
+
+
+The sailor on watch opened the outer door. There, plodding over the
+ghastly white snow, were the officers of the _Wanderer_ approaching the
+hut. There, scattered under the merciless black sky, were the crew, with
+the dogs and the sledges, waiting the word which was to start them on
+their perilous and doubtful journey.
+
+Captain Helding of the _Wanderer_, accompanied by his officers, entered
+the hut, in high spirits at the prospect of a change. Behind them,
+lounging in slowly by himself, was a dark, sullen, heavy-browed man. He
+neither spoke, nor offered his hand to anybody: he was the one person
+present who seemed to be perfectly indifferent to the fate in store for
+him. This was the man whom his brother officers had nicknamed the Bear
+of the Expedition. In other words--Richard Wardour.
+
+Crayford advanced to welcome Captain Helding. Frank, remembering the
+friendly reproof which he had just received, passed over the other
+officers of the _Wanderer_, and made a special effort to be civil to
+Crayford's friend.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Wardour," he said. "We may congratulate each other on
+the chance of leaving this horrible place."
+
+"_You_ may think it horrible," Wardour retorted; "I like it."
+
+"Like it? Good Heavens! why?"
+
+"Because there are no women here."
+
+Frank turned to his brother officers, without making any further
+advances in the direction of Richard Wardour. The Bear of the Expedition
+was more unapproachable than ever.
+
+In the meantime, the hut had become thronged by the able-bodied officers
+and men of the two ships. Captain Helding, standing in the midst of
+them, with Crayford by his side, proceeded to explain the purpose of the
+contemplated expedition to the audience which surrounded him.
+
+He began in these words:
+
+"Brother officers and men of the _Wanderer_ and _Sea-mew_, it is my
+duty to tell you, very briefly, the reasons which have decided Captain
+Ebsworth and myself on dispatching an exploring party in search of help.
+Without recalling all the hardships we have suffered for the last two
+years--the destruction, first of one of our ships, then of the other;
+the death of some of our bravest and best companions; the vain battles
+we have been fighting with the ice and snow, and boundless desolation of
+these inhospitable regions--without dwelling on these things, it is
+my duty to remind you that this, the last place in which we have taken
+refuge, is far beyond the track of any previous expedition, and that
+consequently our chance of being discovered by any rescuing parties that
+may be sent to look after us is, to say the least of it, a chance of the
+most uncertain kind. You all agree with me, gentlemen, so far?"
+
+The officers (with the exception of Wardour, who stood apart in sullen
+silence) all agreed, so far.
+
+The captain went on.
+
+"It is therefore urgently necessary that we should make another, and
+probably a last, effort to extricate ourselves. The winter is not far
+off, game is getting scarcer and scarcer, our stock of provisions is
+running low, and the sick--especially, I am sorry to say, the sick in
+the _Wanderer_'s hut--are increasing in number day by day. We must look
+to our own lives, and to the lives of those who are dependent on us; and
+we have no time to lose."
+
+The officers echoed the words cheerfully.
+
+"Right! right! No time to lose."
+
+Captain Helding resumed:
+
+"The plan proposed is, that a detachment of the able-bodied officers and
+men among us should set forth this very day, and make another effort to
+reach the nearest inhabited settlements, from which help and provisions
+may be dispatched to those who remain here. The new direction to be
+taken, and the various precautions to be adopted, are all drawn out
+ready. The only question now before us is, Who is to stop here, and who
+is to undertake the journey?"
+
+The officers answered the question with one accord--"Volunteers!"
+
+The men echoed their officers. "Ay, ay, volunteers."
+
+Wardour still preserved his sullen silence. Crayford noticed him.
+standing apart from the rest, and appealed to him personally.
+
+"Do you say nothing?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing," Wardour answered. "Go or stay, it's all one to me."
+
+"I hope you don't really mean that?" said Crayford.
+
+"I do."
+
+"I am sorry to hear it, Wardour."
+
+Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favor of volunteering
+by a question which instantly checked the rising enthusiasm of the
+meeting.
+
+"Well," he said, "suppose we say volunteers. Who volunteers to stop in
+the huts?"
+
+There was a dead silence. The officers and men looked at each other
+confusedly. The captain continued:
+
+"You see we can't settle it by volunteering. You all want to go. Every
+man among us who has the use of his limbs naturally wants to go. But
+what is to become of those who have not got the use of their limbs? Some
+of us must stay here, and take care of the sick."
+
+Everybody admitted that this was true.
+
+"So we get back again," said the captain, "to the old question--Who
+among the able-bodied is to go? and who is to stay? Captain Ebsworth
+says, and I say, let chance decide it. Here are dice. The numbers run
+as high as twelve--double sixes. All who throw under six, stay; all who
+throw over six, go. Officers of the _Wanderer_ and the _Sea-mew_, do you
+agree to that way of meeting the difficulty?"
+
+All the officers agreed, with the one exception of Wardour, who still
+kept silence.
+
+"Men of the _Wanderer_ and _Sea-mew_, your officers agree to cast lots.
+Do you agree too?"
+
+The men agreed without a dissentient voice. Crayford handed the box and
+the dice to Captain Helding.
+
+"You throw first, sir. Under six, 'Stay.' Over six, 'Go.'"
+
+Captain Helding cast the dice; the top of the cask serving for a table.
+He threw seven.
+
+"Go," said Crayford. "I congratulate you, sir. Now for my own chance."
+He cast the dice in his turn. Three! "Stay! Ah, well! well! if I can do
+my duty, and be of use to others, what does it matter whether I go or
+stay? Wardour, you are next, in the absence of your first lieutenant."
+
+Wardour prepared to cast, without shaking the dice.
+
+"Shake the box, man!" cried Crayford. "Give yourself a chance of luck!"
+
+Wardour persisted in letting the dice fall out carelessly, just as they
+lay in the box.
+
+"Not I!" he muttered to himself. "I've done with luck." Saying those
+words, he threw down the empty box, and seated himself on the nearest
+chest, without looking to see how the dice had fallen.
+
+Crayford examined them. "Six!" he exclaimed. "There! you have a second
+chance, in spite of yourself. You are neither under nor over--you throw
+again."
+
+"Bah!" growled the Bear. "It's not worth the trouble of getting up for.
+Somebody else throw for me." He suddenly looked at Frank. "You! you have
+got what the women call a lucky face."
+
+Frank appealed to Crayford. "Shall I?"
+
+"Yes, if he wishes it," said Crayford.
+
+Frank cast the dice. "Two! He stays! Wardour, I am sorry I have thrown
+against you."
+
+"Go or stay," reiterated Wardour, "it's all one to me. You will be
+luckier, young one, when you cast for yourself."
+
+Frank cast for himself.
+
+"Eight. Hurrah! I go!"
+
+"What did I tell you?" said Wardour. "The chance was yours. You have
+thriven on my ill luck."
+
+He rose, as he spoke, to leave the hut. Crayford stopped him.
+
+"Have you anything particular to do, Richard?"
+
+"What has anybody to do here?"
+
+"Wait a little, then. I want to speak to you when this business is
+over."
+
+"Are you going to give me any more good advice?"
+
+"Don't look at me in that sour way, Richard. I am going to ask you a
+question about something which concerns yourself."
+
+Wardour yielded without a word more. He returned to his chest, and
+cynically composed himself to slumber. The casting of the lots went
+on rapidly among the officers and men. In another half-hour chance had
+decided the question of "Go" or "Stay" for all alike. The men left the
+hut. The officers entered the inner apartment for a last conference with
+the bed-ridden captain of the _Sea-mew_. Wardour and Crayford were left
+together, alone.
+
+
+
+Chapter 9.
+
+
+Crayford touched his friend on the shoulder to rouse him. Wardour looked
+up, impatiently, with a frown.
+
+"I was just asleep," he said. "Why do you wake me?"
+
+"Look round you, Richard. We are alone."
+
+"Well--and what of that?"
+
+"I wish to speak to you privately; and this is my opportunity. You have
+disappointed and surprised me to-day. Why did you say it was all one to
+you whether you went or stayed? Why are you the only man among us who
+seems to be perfectly indifferent whether we are rescued or not?"
+
+"Can a man always give a reason for what is strange in his manner or his
+words?" Wardour retorted.
+
+"He can try," said Crayford, quietly--"when his friend asks him."
+
+Wardour's manner softened.
+
+"That's true," he said. "I _will_ try. Do you remember the first night
+at sea when we sailed from England in the _Wanderer_?"
+
+"As well as if it was yesterday."
+
+"A calm, still night," the other went on, thoughtfully. "No clouds, no
+stars. Nothing in the sky but the broad moon, and hardly a ripple to
+break the path of light she made in the quiet water. Mine was the middle
+watch that night. You came on deck, and found me alone--"
+
+He stopped. Crayford took his hand, and finished the sentence for him.
+
+"Alone--and in tears."
+
+"The last I shall ever shed," Wardour added, bitterly.
+
+"Don't say that! There are times when a man is to be pitied indeed, if
+he can shed no tears. Go on, Richard."
+
+Wardour proceeded--still following the old recollections, still
+preserving his gentler tones.
+
+"I should have quarreled with any other man who had surprised me at that
+moment," he said. "There was something, I suppose, in your voice when
+you asked my pardon for disturbing me, that softened my heart. I told
+you I had met with a disappointment which had broken me for life. There
+was no need to explain further. The only hopeless wretchedness in this
+world is the wretchedness that women cause."
+
+"And the only unalloyed happiness," said Crayford, "the happiness that
+women bring."
+
+"That may be your experience of them," Wardour answered; "mine is
+different. All the devotion, the patience, the humility, the worship
+that there is in man, I laid at the feet of a woman. She accepted
+the offering as women do--accepted it, easily, gracefully,
+unfeelingly--accepted it as a matter of course. I left England to win
+a high place in my profession, before I dared to win _her_. I braved
+danger, and faced death. I staked my life in the fever swamps of Africa,
+to gain the promotion that I only desired for her sake--and gained it. I
+came back to give her all, and to ask nothing in return, but to rest my
+weary heart in the sunshine of her smile. And her own lips--the lips I
+had kissed at parting--told me that another man had robbed me of her. I
+spoke but few words when I heard that confession, and left her forever.
+'The time may come,' I told her, 'when I shall forgive _you_. But the
+man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first
+met.' Don't ask me who he was! I have yet to discover him. The treachery
+had been kept secret; nobody could tell me where to find him; nobody
+could tell me who he was. What did it matter? When I had lived out the
+first agony, I could rely on myself--I could be patient, and bide my
+time."
+
+"Your time? What time?"
+
+"The time when I and that man shall meet face to face. I knew it then; I
+know it now--it was written on my heart then, it is written on my heart
+now--we two shall meet and know each other! With that conviction strong
+within me, I volunteered for this service, as I would have volunteered
+for anything that set work and hardship and danger, like ramparts,
+between my misery and me. With that conviction strong within me still, I
+tell you it is no matter whether I stay here with the sick, or go hence
+with the strong. I shall live till I have met that man! There is a day
+of reckoning appointed between us. Here in the freezing cold, or away in
+the deadly heat; in battle or in shipwreck; in the face of starvation;
+under the shadow of pestilence--I, though hundreds are falling round me,
+I shall live! live for the coming of one day! live for the meeting with
+one man!"
+
+He stopped, trembling, body and soul, under the hold that his own
+terrible superstition had fastened on him. Crayford drew back in silent
+horror. Wardour noticed the action--he resented it--he appealed, in
+defense of his one cherished conviction, to Crayford's own experience of
+him.
+
+"Look at me!" he cried. "Look how I have lived and thriven, with
+the heart-ache gnawing at me at home, and the winds of the icy north
+whistling round me here! I am the strongest man among you. Why? I have
+fought through hardships that have laid the best-seasoned men of all our
+party on their backs. Why? What have _I_ done, that my life should throb
+as bravely through every vein in my body at this minute, and in this
+deadly place, as ever it did in the wholesome breezes of home? What am
+I preserved for? I tell you again, for the coming of one day--for the
+meeting with one man."
+
+He paused once more. This time Crayford spoke.
+
+"Richard!" he said, "since we first met, I have believed in your better
+nature, against all outward appearance. I have believed in you, firmly,
+truly, as your brother might. You are putting that belief to a hard
+test. If your enemy had told me that you had ever talked as you talk
+now, that you had ever looked as you look now, I would have turned my
+back on him as the utterer of a vile calumny against a just, a brave, an
+upright man. Oh! my friend, my friend, if ever I have deserved well of
+you, put away these thoughts from your heart! Face me again, with the
+stainless look of a man who has trampled under his feet the bloody
+superstitions of revenge, and knows them no more! Never, never, let the
+time come when I cannot offer you my hand as I offer it now, to the man
+I can still admire--to the brother I can still love!"
+
+The heart that no other voice could touch felt that appeal. The fierce
+eyes, the hard voice, softened under Crayford's influence. Richard
+Wardour's head sank on his breast.
+
+"You are kinder to me than I deserve," he said. "Be kinder still, and
+forget what I have been talking about. No! no more about me; I am not
+worth it. We'll change the subject, and never go back to it again. Let's
+do something. Work, Crayford--that's the true elixir of our life! Work,
+that stretches the muscles and sets the blood a-glowing. Work, that
+tires the body and rests the mind. Is there nothing in hand that I can
+do? Nothing to cut? nothing to carry?"
+
+The door opened as he put the question. Bateson--appointed to chop
+Frank's bed-place into firing--appeared punctually with his ax. Wardour,
+without a word of warning, snatched the ax out of the man's hand.
+
+"What was this wanted for?" he asked.
+
+"To cut up Mr. Aldersley's berth there into firing, sir."
+
+"I'll do it for you! I'll have it down in no time!" He turned to
+Crayford. "You needn't be afraid about me, old friend. I am going to do
+the right thing. I am going to tire my body and rest my mind."
+
+The evil spirit in him was plainly subdued--for the time, at least.
+Crayford took his hand in silence; and then (followed by Bateson) left
+him to his work.
+
+
+
+Chapter 10.
+
+
+Ax in hand, Wardour approached Frank's bed-place.
+
+"If I could only cut the thoughts out of me," he said to himself, "as I
+am going to cut the billets out of this wood!" He attacked the bed-place
+with the ax, like a man who well knew the use of his instrument. "Oh
+me!" he thought, sadly, "if I had only been born a carpenter instead
+of a gentleman! A good ax, Master Bateson--I wonder where you got it?
+Something like a grip, my man, on this handle. Poor Crayford! his words
+stick in my throat. A fine fellow! a noble fellow! No use thinking, no
+use regretting; what is said, is said. Work! work! work!"
+
+Plank after plank fell out on the floor. He laughed over the easy task
+of destruction. "Aha! young Aldersley! It doesn't take much to demolish
+your bed-place. I'll have it down! I would have the whole hut down, if
+they would only give me the chance of chopping at it!"
+
+A long strip of wood fell to his ax--long enough to require cutting
+in two. He turned it, and stooped over it. Something caught his
+eye--letters carved in the wood. He looked closer. The letters were very
+faintly and badly cut. He could only make out the first three of them;
+and even of those he was not quite certain. They looked like C L A--if
+they looked like anything. He threw down the strip of wood irritably.
+
+"D--n the fellow (whoever he is) who cut this! Why should he carve
+_that_ name, of all the names in the world?"
+
+He paused, considering--then determined to go on again with his
+self-imposed labor. He was ashamed of his own outburst. He looked
+eagerly for the ax. "Work, work! Nothing for it but work." He found the
+ax, and went on again.
+
+He cut out another plank.
+
+He stopped, and looked at it suspiciously.
+
+There was carving again, on this plank. The letters F. and A. appeared
+on it.
+
+He put down the ax. There were vague misgivings in him which he was not
+able to realize. The state of his own mind was fast becoming a puzzle to
+him.
+
+"More carving," he said to himself. "That's the way these young idlers
+employ their long hours. F. A.? Those must be _his_ initials--Frank
+Aldersley. Who carved the letters on the other plank? Frank Aldersley,
+too?"
+
+He turned the piece of wood in his hand nearer to the light, and looked
+lower down it. More carving again, lower down! Under the initials F. A.
+were two more letters--C. B.
+
+"C. B.?" he repeated to himself. "His sweet heart's initials, I suppose?
+Of course--at his age--his sweetheart's initials."
+
+He paused once more. A spasm of inner pain showed the shadow of its
+mysterious passage, outwardly on his face.
+
+"_Her_ cipher is C. B.," he said, in low, broken tones. "C. B.--Clara
+Burnham."
+
+He waited, with the plank in his hand; repeating the name over and over
+again, as if it was a question he was putting to himself.
+
+"Clara Burnham? Clara Burnham?"
+
+He dropped the plank, and turned deadly pale in a moment. His eyes
+wandered furtively backward and forward between the strip of wood on the
+floor and the half-demolished berth. "Oh, God! what has come to me now?"
+he said to himself, in a whisper. He snatched up the ax, with a strange
+cry--something between rage and terror. He tried--fiercely, desperately
+tried--to go on with his work. No! strong as he was, he could not use
+the ax. His hands were helpless; they trembled incessantly. He went to
+the fire; he held his hands over it. They still trembled incessantly;
+they infected the rest of him. He shuddered all over. He knew fear. His
+own thoughts terrified him.
+
+"Crayford!" he cried out. "Crayford! come here, and let's go hunting."
+
+No friendly voice answered him. No friendly face showed itself at the
+door.
+
+An interval passed; and there came over him another change. He recovered
+his self-possession almost as suddenly as he had lost it. A smile--a
+horrid, deforming, unnatural smile--spread slowly, stealthily,
+devilishly over his face. He left the fire; he put the ax away softly in
+a corner; he sat down in his old place, deliberately self-abandoned to a
+frenzy of vindictive joy. He had found the man! There, at the end of
+the world--there, at the last fight of the Arctic voyagers against
+starvation and death, he had found the man!
+
+The minutes passed.
+
+He became conscious, on a sudden, of a freezing stream of air pouring
+into the room.
+
+He turned, and saw Crayford opening the door of the hut. A man was
+behind him. Wardour rose eagerly, and looked over Crayford's shoulder.
+
+Was it--could it be--the man who had carved the letters on the plank?
+Yes! Frank Aldersley!
+
+
+
+Chapter 11.
+
+
+"Still at work!" Crayford exclaimed, looking at the half-demolished
+bed-place. "Give yourself a little rest, Richard. The exploring party
+is ready to start. If you wish to take leave of your brother officers
+before they go, you have no time to lose."
+
+He checked himself there, looking Wardour full in the face.
+
+"Good Heavens!" he cried, "how pale you are! Has anything happened?"
+
+Frank--searching in his locker for articles of clothing which he might
+require on the journey--looked round. He was startled, as Crayford had
+been startled, by the sudden change in Wardour since they had last seen
+him.
+
+"Are you ill?" he asked. "I hear you have been doing Bateson's work for
+him. Have you hurt yourself?"
+
+Wardour suddenly moved his head, so as to hide his face from both
+Crayford and Frank. He took out his handkerchief, and wound it clumsily
+round his left hand.
+
+"Yes," he said; "I hurt myself with the ax. It's nothing. Never mind.
+Pain always has a curious effect on me. I tell you it's nothing! Don't
+notice it!"
+
+He turned his face toward them again as suddenly as he had turned it
+away. He advanced a few steps, and addressed himself with an uneasy
+familiarity to Frank.
+
+"I didn't answer you civilly when you spoke to me some little time
+since. I mean when I first came in here along with the rest of them. I
+apologize. Shake hands! How are you? Ready for the march?"
+
+Frank met the oddly abrupt advance which had been made to him with
+perfect good humor.
+
+"I am glad to be friends with you, Mr. Wardour. I wish I was as well
+seasoned to fatigue as you are."
+
+Wardour burst into a hard, joyless, unnatural laugh.
+
+"Not strong, eh? You don't look it. The dice had better have sent me
+away, and kept you here. I never felt in better condition in my life."
+He paused and added, with his eye on Frank and with a strong emphasis on
+the words: "We men of Kent are made of tough material."
+
+Frank advanced a step on his side, with a new interest in Richard
+Wardour.
+
+"You come from Kent?" he said.
+
+"Yes. From East Kent." He waited a little once more, and looked hard at
+Frank. "Do you know that part of the country?" he asked.
+
+"I ought to know something about East Kent," Frank answered. "Some dear
+friends of mine once lived there."
+
+"Friends of yours?" Wardour repeated. "One of the county families, I
+suppose?"
+
+As he put the question, he abruptly looked over his shoulder. He was
+standing between Crayford and Frank. Crayford, taking no part in the
+conversation, had been watching him, and listening to him more and more
+attentively as that conversation went on. Within the last moment or
+two Wardour had become instinctively conscious of this. He resented
+Crayford's conduct with needless irritability.
+
+"Why are you staring at me?" he asked.
+
+"Why are you looking unlike yourself?" Crayford answered, quietly.
+
+Wardour made no reply. He renewed the conversation with Frank.
+
+"One of the county families?" he resumed. "The Winterbys of Yew Grange,
+I dare say?"
+
+"No," said Frank; "but friends of the Witherbys, very likely. The
+Burnhams."
+
+Desperately as he struggled to maintain it, Wardour's self-control
+failed him. He started violently. The clumsily-wound handkerchief fell
+off his hand. Still looking at him attentively, Crayford picked it up.
+
+"There is your handkerchief, Richard," he said. "Strange!"
+
+"What is strange?"
+
+"You told us you had hurt yourself with the ax--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"There is no blood on your handkerchief."
+
+Wardour snatched the handkerchief out of Crayford's hand, and,
+turning away, approached the outer door of the hut. "No blood on the
+handkerchief," he said to himself. "There may be a stain or two when
+Crayford sees it again." He stopped within a few paces of the door,
+and spoke to Crayford. "You recommended me to take leave of my brother
+officers before it was too late," he said. "I am going to follow your
+advice."
+
+The door was opened from the outer side as he laid his hand on the lock.
+
+One of the quartermasters of the _Wanderer_ entered the hut.
+
+"Is Captain Helding here, sir?" he asked, addressing himself to Wardour.
+
+Wardour pointed to Crayford.
+
+"The lieutenant will tell you," he said.
+
+Crayford advanced and questioned the quartermaster. "What do you want
+with Captain Helding?" he asked.
+
+"I have a report to make, sir. There has been an accident on the ice."
+
+"To one of your men?"
+
+"No, sir. To one of our officers."
+
+Wardour, on the point of going out, paused when the quartermaster made
+that reply. For a moment he considered with himself. Then he walked
+slowly back to the part of the room in which Frank was standing.
+Crayford, directing the quartermaster, pointed to the arched door way in
+the side of the hut.
+
+"I am sorry to hear of the accident," he said. "You will find Captain
+Helding in that room."
+
+For the second time, with singular persistency, Wardour renewed the
+conversation with Frank.
+
+"So you knew the Burnhams?" he said. "What became of Clara when her
+father died?"
+
+Frank's face flushed angrily on the instant.
+
+"Clara!" he repeated. "What authorizes you to speak of Miss Burnham in
+that familiar manner?"
+
+Wardour seized the opportunity of quarreling with him.
+
+"What right have you to ask?" he retorted, coarsely.
+
+Frank's blood was up. He forgot his promise to Clara to keep their
+engagement secret--he forgot everything but the unbridled insolence of
+Wardour's language and manner.
+
+"A right which I insist on your respecting," he answered. "The right of
+being engaged to marry her."
+
+Crayford's steady eyes were still on the watch, and Wardour felt them
+on him. A little more and Crayford might openly interfere. Even Wardour
+recognized for once the necessity of controlling his temper, cost him
+what it might. He made his apologies, with overstrained politeness, to
+Frank.
+
+"Impossible to dispute such a right as yours," he said. "Perhaps
+you will excuse me when you know that I am one of Miss Burnham's old
+friends. My father and her father were neighbors. We have always met
+like brother and sister--"
+
+Frank generously stopped the apology there.
+
+"Say no more," he interposed. "I was in the wrong--I lost my temper.
+Pray forgive me."
+
+Wardour looked at him with a strange, reluctant interest while he was
+speaking. Wardour asked an extraordinary question when he had done.
+
+"Is she very fond of you?"
+
+Frank burst out laughing.
+
+"My dear fellow," he said, "come to our wedding, and judge for
+yourself."
+
+"Come to your wedding?" As he repeated the words Wardour stole one
+glance at Frank which Frank (employed in buckling his knapsack) failed
+to see. Crayford noticed it, and Crayford's blood ran cold. Comparing
+the words which Wardour had spoken to him while they were alone together
+with the words that had just passed in his presence, he could draw but
+one conclusion. The woman whom Wardour had loved and lost was--Clara
+Burnham. The man who had robbed him of her was Frank Aldersley. And
+Wardour had discovered it in the interval since they had last met.
+"Thank God!" thought Crayford, "the dice have parted them! Frank goes
+with the expedition, and Wardour stays behind with me."
+
+The reflection had barely occurred to him--Frank's thoughtless
+invitation to Wardour had just passed his lips--when the canvas screen
+over the doorway was drawn aside. Captain Helding and the officers who
+were to leave with the exploring party returned to the main room on
+their way out. Seeing Crayford, Captain Helding stopped to speak to him.
+
+"I have a casualty to report," said the captain, "which diminishes
+our numbers by one. My second lieutenant, who was to have joined
+the exploring party, has had a fall on the ice. Judging by what the
+quartermaster tells me, I am afraid the poor fellow has broken his leg."
+
+"I will supply his place," cried a voice at the other end of the hut.
+
+Everybody looked round. The man who had spoken was Richard Wardour.
+
+Crayford instantly interfered--so vehemently as to astonish all who knew
+him.
+
+"No!" he said. "Not you, Richard! not you!"
+
+"Why not?" Wardour asked, sternly.
+
+"Why not, indeed?" added Captain Helding. "Wardour is the very man to be
+useful on a long march. He is in perfect health, and he is the best shot
+among us. I was on the point of proposing him myself."
+
+Crayford failed to show his customary respect for his superior officer.
+He openly disputed the captain's conclusion.
+
+"Wardour has no right to volunteer," he rejoined. "It has been settled,
+Captain Helding, that chance shall decide who is to go and who is to
+stay."
+
+"And chance _has_ decided it," cried Wardour. "Do you think we are going
+to cast the dice again, and give an officer of the _Sea-mew_ a chance of
+replacing an officer of the _Wanderer_? There is a vacancy in our party,
+not in yours; and we claim the right of filling it as we please. I
+volunteer, and my captain backs me. Whose authority is to keep me here
+after that?"
+
+"Gently, Wardour," said Captain Helding. "A man who is in the right can
+afford to speak with moderation." He turned to Crayford. "You must admit
+yourself," he continued, "that Wardour is right this time. The missing
+man belongs to my command, and in common justice one of my officers
+ought to supply his place."
+
+It was impossible to dispute the matter further. The dullest man present
+could see that the captain's reply was unanswerable. In sheer despair,
+Crayford took Frank's arm and led him aside a few steps. The last chance
+left of parting the two men was the chance of appealing to Frank.
+
+"My dear boy," he began, "I want to say one friendly word to you on the
+subject of your health. I have already, if you remember, expressed my
+doubts whether you are strong enough to make one of an exploring party.
+I feel those doubts more strongly than ever at this moment. Will you
+take the advice of a friend who wishes you well?"
+
+Wardour had followed Crayford. Wardour roughly interposed before Frank
+could reply.
+
+"Let him alone!"
+
+Crayford paid no heed to the interruption. He was too earnestly bent on
+withdrawing Frank from the expedition to notice anything that was said
+or done by the persons about him.
+
+"Don't, pray don't, risk hardships which you are unfit to bear!" he went
+on, entreatingly. "Your place can be easily filled. Change your mind,
+Frank. Stay here with me."
+
+Again Wardour interfered. Again he called out, "Leave him alone!" more
+roughly than ever. Still deaf and blind to every consideration but one,
+Crayford pressed his entreaties on Frank.
+
+"You owned yourself just now that you were not well seasoned to
+fatigue," he persisted. "You feel (you _must_ feel) how weak that last
+illness has left you? You know (I am sure you know) how unfit you are to
+brave exposure to cold, and long marches over the snow."
+
+Irritated beyond endurance by Crayford's obstinacy; seeing, or thinking
+he saw, signs of yielding in Frank's face, Wardour so far forgot himself
+as to seize Crayford by the arm and attempt to drag him away from Frank.
+Crayford turned and looked at him.
+
+"Richard," he said, very quietly, "you are not yourself. I pity you.
+Drop your hand."
+
+Wardour relaxed his hold, with something of the sullen submission of
+a wild animal to its keeper. The momentary silence which followed gave
+Frank an opportunity of speaking at last.
+
+"I am gratefully sensible, Crayford," he began, "of the interest which
+you take in me--"
+
+"And you will follow my advice?" Crayford interposed, eagerly.
+
+"My mind is made up, old friend," Frank answered, firmly and sadly.
+"Forgive me for disappointing you. I am appointed to the expedition.
+With the expedition I go." He moved nearer to Wardour. In his innocence
+of all suspicion he clapped Wardour heartily on the shoulder. "When
+I feel the fatigue," said poor simple Frank, "you will help me,
+comrade--won't you? Come along!"
+
+Wardour snatched his gun out of the hands of the sailor who was carrying
+it for him. His dark face became suddenly irradiated with a terrible
+joy.
+
+"Come!" he cried. "Over the snow and over the ice! Come! where no human
+footsteps have ever trodden, and where no human trace is ever left."
+
+Blindly, instinctively, Crayford made an effort to part them. His
+brother officers, standing near, pulled him back. They looked at each
+other anxiously. The merciless cold, striking its victims in various
+ways, had struck in some instances at their reason first. Everybody
+loved Crayford. Was he, too, going on the dark way that others had
+taken before him? They forced him to seat himself on one of the lockers.
+"Steady, old fellow!" they said kindly--"steady!" Crayford yielded,
+writhing inwardly under the sense of his own helplessness. What in God's
+name could he do? Could he denounce Wardour to Captain Helding on bare
+suspicion--without so much as the shadow of a proof to justify what he
+said? The captain would decline to insult one of his officers by even
+mentioning the monstrous accusation to him. The captain would conclude,
+as others had already concluded, that Crayford's mind was giving way
+under stress of cold and privation. No hope--literally, no hope now,
+but in the numbers of the expedition. Officers and men, they all liked
+Frank. As long as they could stir hand or foot, they would help him on
+the way--they would see that no harm came to him.
+
+The word of command was given; the door was thrown open; the hut emptied
+rapidly. Over the merciless white snow--under the merciless black
+sky--the exploring party began to move. The sick and helpless men,
+whose last hope of rescue centered in their departing messmates, cheered
+faintly. Some few whose days were numbered sobbed and cried like women.
+Frank's voice faltered as he turned back at the door to say his last
+words to the friend who had been a father to him.
+
+"God bless you, Crayford!"
+
+Crayford broke away from the officers near him; and, hurrying forward,
+seized Frank by both hands. Crayford held him as if he would never let
+him go.
+
+"God preserve you, Frank! I would give all I have in the world to be
+with you. Good-by! Good-by!"
+
+Frank waved his hand--dashed away the tears that were gathering in his
+eyes--and hurried out. Crayford called after him, the last, the only
+warning that he could give:
+
+"While you can stand, keep with the main body, Frank!"
+
+Wardour, waiting till the last--Wardour, following Frank through the
+snow-drift--stopped, stepped back, and answered Crayford at the door:
+
+"While he can stand, he keeps with Me."
+
+
+
+
+Third Scene--The Iceberg.
+
+
+
+Chapter 12.
+
+
+Alone! alone on the Frozen Deep!
+
+The Arctic sun is rising dimly in the dreary sky. The beams of the cold
+northern moon, mingling strangely with the dawning light, clothe the
+snowy plains in hues of livid gray. An ice-field on the far horizon is
+moving slowly southward in the spectral light. Nearer, a stream of
+open water rolls its slow black waves past the edges of the ice. Nearer
+still, following the drift, an iceberg rears its crags and pinnacles
+to the sky; here, glittering in the moonbeams; there, looming dim and
+ghost-like in the ashy light.
+
+Midway on the long sweep of the lower slope of the iceberg, what objects
+rise, and break the desolate monotony of the scene? In this awful
+solitude, can signs appear which tell of human Life? Yes! The black
+outline of a boat just shows itself, hauled up on the berg. In an
+ice-cavern behind the boat the last red embers of a dying fire flicker
+from time to time over the figures of two men. One is seated, resting
+his back against the side of the cavern. The other lies prostrate, with
+his head on his comrade's knee. The first of these men is awake, and
+thinking. The second reclines, with his still white face turned up to
+the sky--sleeping or dead. Days and days since, these two have fallen
+behind on the march of the expedition of relief. Days and days since,
+these two have been given up by their weary and failing companions as
+doomed and lost. He who sits thinking is Richard Wardour. He who lies
+sleeping or dead is Frank Aldersley.
+
+The iceberg drifts slowly, over the black water, through the ashy light.
+Minute by minute the dying fire sinks. Minute by minute the deathly cold
+creeps nearer and nearer to the lost men.
+
+Richard Wardour rouses himself from his thoughts--looks at the still
+white face beneath him--and places his hand on Frank's heart. It still
+beats feebly. Give him his share of the food and fuel still stored in
+the boat, and Frank may live through it. Leave him neglected where he
+lies, and his death is a question of hours--perhaps minutes; who knows?
+
+Richard Wardour lifts the sleeper's head and rests it against the cavern
+side. He goes to the boat, and returns with a billet of wood. He
+stoops to place the wood on the fire--and stops. Frank is dreaming,
+and murmuring in his dream. A woman's name passes his lips. Frank is in
+England again--at the ball--whispering to Clara the confession of his
+love.
+
+Over Richard Wardour's face there passes the shadow of a deadly thought.
+He rises from the fire; he takes the wood back to the boat. His iron
+strength is shaken, but it still holds out. They are drifting nearer and
+nearer to the open sea. He can launch the boat without help; he can take
+the food and the fuel with him. The sleeper on the iceberg is the man
+who has robbed him of Clara--who has wrecked the hope and the happiness
+of his life. Leave the man in his sleep, and let him die!
+
+So the tempter whispers. Richard Wardour tries his strength on the boat.
+It moves: he has got it under control. He stops, and looks round. Beyond
+him is the open sea. Beneath him is the man who has robbed him of Clara.
+The shadow of the deadly thought grows and darkens over his face. He
+waits with his hands on the boat--waits and thinks.
+
+The iceberg drifts slowly--over the black water; through the ashy light.
+Minute by minute, the dying fire sinks. Minute by minute, the deathly
+cold creeps nearer to the sleeping man. And still Richard Wardour
+waits--waits and thinks.
+
+
+
+
+Fourth Scene--The Garden.
+
+
+
+Chapter 13.
+
+
+The spring has come. The air of the April night just lifts the leaves
+of the sleeping flowers. The moon is queen in the cloudless and starless
+sky. The stillness of the midnight hour is abroad, over land and over
+sea.
+
+In a villa on the westward shore of the Isle of Wight, the glass doors
+which lead from the drawing-room to the garden are yet open. The shaded
+lamp yet burns on the table. A lady sits by the lamp, reading. From time
+to time she looks out into the garden, and sees the white-robed figure
+of a young girl pacing slowly to and fro in the soft brightness of the
+moonlight on the lawn. Sorrow and suspense have set their mark on the
+lady. Not rivals only, but friends who formerly admired her, agree
+now that she looks worn and aged. The more merciful judgment of others
+remarks, with equal truth, that her eyes, her hair, her simple grace
+and grandeur of movement have lost but little of their olden charms. The
+truth lies, as usual, between the two extremes. In spite of sorrow and
+suffering, Mrs. Crayford is the beautiful Mrs. Crayford still.
+
+The delicious silence of the hour is softly disturbed by the voice of
+the younger lady in the garden.
+
+"Go to the piano, Lucy. It is a night for music. Play something that is
+worthy of the night."
+
+Mrs. Crayford looks round at the clock on the mantelpiece.
+
+"My dear Clara, it is past twelve! Remember what the doctor told you.
+You ought to have been in bed an hour ago."
+
+"Half an hour, Lucy--give me half an hour more! Look at the moonlight
+on the sea. Is it possible to go to bed on such a night as this? Play
+something, Lucy--something spiritual and divine."
+
+Earnestly pleading with her friend, Clara advances toward the window.
+She too has suffered under the wasting influences of suspense. Her face
+has lost its youthful freshness; no delicate flush of color rises on
+it when she speaks. The soft gray eyes which won Frank's heart in the
+by-gone time are sadly altered now. In repose, they have a dimmed and
+wearied look. In action, they are wild and restless, like eyes suddenly
+wakened from startling dreams. Robed in white--her soft brown hair
+hanging loosely over her shoulders--there is something weird and
+ghost-like in the girl, as she moves nearer and nearer to the window in
+the full light of the moon--pleading for music that shall be worthy of
+the mystery and the beauty of the night.
+
+"Will you come in here if I play to you?" Mrs. Crayford asks. "It is a
+risk, my love, to be out so long in the night air."
+
+"No! no! I like it. Play--while I am out here looking at the sea. It
+quiets me; it comforts me; it does me good."
+
+She glides back, ghost-like, over the lawn. Mrs. Crayford rises, and
+puts down the volume that she has been reading. It is a record of
+explorations in the Arctic seas. The time has gone by when the two
+lonely women could take an interest in subjects not connected with their
+own anxieties. Now, when hope is fast failing them--now, when their last
+news of the _Wanderer_ and the _Sea-mew_ is news that is more than two
+years old--they can read of nothing, they can think of nothing, but
+dangers and discoveries, losses and rescues in the terrible Polar seas.
+
+Unwillingly, Mrs. Crayford puts her book aside, and opens the
+piano--Mozart's "Air in A, with Variations," lies open on the
+instrument. One after another she plays the lovely melodies, so simply,
+so purely beautiful, of that unpretending and unrivaled work. At the
+close of the ninth Variation (Clara's favorite), she pauses, and turns
+toward the garden.
+
+"Shall I stop there?" she asks.
+
+There is no answer. Has Clara wandered away out of hearing of the music
+that she loves--the music that harmonizes so subtly with the tender
+beauty of the night? Mrs. Crayford rises and advances to the window.
+
+No! there is the white figure standing alone on the slope of the
+lawn--the head turned away from the house; the face looking out over
+the calm sea, whose gently rippling waters end in the dim line on the
+horizon which is the line of the Hampshire coast.
+
+Mrs. Crayford advances as far as the path before the window, and calls
+to her.
+
+"Clara!"
+
+Again there is no answer. The white figure still stands immovably in its
+place.
+
+With signs of distress in her face, but with no appearance of alarm,
+Mrs. Crayford returns to the room. Her own sad experience tells her what
+has happened. She summons the servants and directs them to wait in the
+drawing-room until she calls to them. This done, she returns to the
+garden, and approaches the mysterious figure on the lawn.
+
+Dead to the outer world, as if she lay already in her grave--insensible
+to touch, insensible to sound, motionless as stone, cold as stone--Clara
+stands on the moonlit lawn, facing the seaward view. Mrs. Crayford waits
+at her side, patiently watching for the change which she knows is to
+come. "Catalepsy," as some call it--"hysteria," as others say--this
+alone is certain, the same interval always passes; the same change
+always appears.
+
+It comes now. Not a change in her eyes; they still remain wide open,
+fixed and glassy. The first movement is a movement of her hands. They
+rise slowly from her side and waver in the air like the hands of a
+person groping in the dark. Another interval, and the movement spreads
+to her lips: they part and tremble. A few minutes more, and words begin
+to drop, one by one, from those parted lips--words spoken in a lost,
+vacant tone, as if she is talking in her sleep.
+
+Mrs. Crayford looks back at the house. Sad experience makes her
+suspicious of the servants' curiosity. Sad experience has long since
+warned her that the servants are not to be trusted within hearing of
+the wild words which Clara speaks in the trance. Has any one of them
+ventured into the garden? No. They are out of hearing at the window,
+waiting for the signal which tells them that their help is needed.
+
+Turning toward Clara once more, Mrs. Crayford hears the vacantly uttered
+words, falling faster and faster from her lips,
+
+"Frank! Frank! Frank! Don't drop behind--don't trust Richard Wardour.
+While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!"
+
+(The farewell warning of Crayford in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep,
+repeated by Clara in the garden of her English home!)
+
+A moment of silence follows; and, in that moment, the vision has
+changed. She sees him on the iceberg now, at the mercy of the bitterest
+enemy he has on earth. She sees him drifting--over the black water,
+through the ashy light.
+
+"Wake, Frank! wake and defend yourself! Richard Wardour knows that
+I love you--Richard Wardour's vengeance will take your life! Wake,
+Frank--wake! You are drifting to your death!" A low groan of horror
+bursts from her, sinister and terrible to hear. "Drifting! drifting!"
+she whispers to herself--"drifting to his death!"
+
+Her glassy eyes suddenly soften--then close. A long shudder runs through
+her. A faint flush shows itself on the deadly pallor of her face, and
+fades again. Her limbs fail her. She sinks into Mrs. Crayford's arms.
+
+The servants, answering the call for help, carry her into the house.
+They lay her insensible on her bed. After half an hour or more, her eyes
+open again--this time with the light of life in them--open, and rest
+languidly on the friend sitting by the bedside.
+
+"I have had a dreadful dream," she murmurs faintly. "Am I ill, Lucy? I
+feel so weak."
+
+Even as she says the words, sleep, gentle, natural sleep, takes her
+suddenly, as it takes young children weary with their play. Though it
+is all over now, though no further watching is required, Mrs. Crayford
+still keeps her place by the bedside, too anxious and too wakeful to
+retire to her own room.
+
+On other occasions, she is accustomed to dismiss from her mind the words
+which drop from Clara in the trance. This time the effort to dismiss
+them is beyond her power. The words haunt her. Vainly she recalls to
+memory all that the doctors have said to her, in speaking of Clara in
+the state of trance. "What she vaguely dreads for the lost man whom she
+loves is mingled in her mind with what she is constantly reading, of
+trials, dangers, and escapes in the Arctic seas. The most startling
+things that she may say or do are all attributable to this cause, and
+may all be explained in this way." So the doctors have spoken; and, thus
+far, Mrs. Crayford has shared their view. It is only to-night that the
+girl's words ring in her ear, with a strange prophetic sound in them.
+It is only to-night that she asks herself: "Is Clara present, in the
+spirit, with our loved and lost ones in the lonely North? Can mortal
+vision see the dead and living in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep?"
+
+
+
+Chapter 14.
+
+
+The night had passed.
+
+Far and near the garden view looked its gayest and brightest in the
+light of the noonday sun. The cheering sounds which tell of life and
+action were audible all round the villa. From the garden of the nearest
+house rose the voices of children at play. Along the road at the back
+sounded the roll of wheels, as carts and carriages passed at intervals.
+Out on the blue sea, the distant splash of the paddles, the distant
+thump of the engines, told from time to time of the passage of steamers,
+entering or leaving the strait between the island and the mainland. In
+the trees, the birds sang gayly among the rustling leaves. In the house,
+the women-servants were laughing over some jest or story that cheered
+them at their work. It was a lively and pleasant time--a bright,
+enjoyable day.
+
+The two ladies were out together; resting on a garden seat, after a walk
+round the grounds.
+
+They exchanged a few trivial words relating to the beauty of the day,
+and then said no more. Possessing the same consciousness of what she had
+seen in the trance which persons in general possess of what they
+have seen in a dream--believing in the vision as a supernatural
+revelation--Clara's worst forebodings were now, to her mind, realized
+as truths. Her last faint hope of ever seeing Frank again was now at an
+end. Intimate experience of her told Mrs. Crayford what was passing in
+Clara's mind, and warned her that the attempt to reason and remonstrate
+would be little better than a voluntary waste of words and time. The
+disposition which she had herself felt on the previous night, to attach
+a superstitious importance to the words that Clara had spoken in the
+trance, had vanished with the return of the morning. Rest and reflection
+had quieted her mind, and had restored the composing influence of
+her sober sense. Sympathizing with Clara in all besides, she had no
+sympathy, as they sat together in the pleasant sunshine, with Clara's
+gloomy despair of the future. She, who could still hope, had nothing to
+say to the sad companion who had done with hope. So the quiet minutes
+succeeded each other, and the two friends sat side by side in silence.
+
+An hour passed, and the gate-bell of the villa rang.
+
+They both started--they both knew the ring. It was the hour when
+the postman brought their newspapers from London. In past days, what
+hundreds on hundreds of times they had torn off the cover which inclosed
+the newspaper, and looked at the same column with the same weary
+mingling of hope and despair! There to-day--as it was yesterday; as it
+would be, if they lived, to-morrow--there was the servant with Lucy's
+newspaper and Clara's newspaper in his hand!
+
+Would both of them do again to-day what both had done so often in the
+days that were gone?
+
+No! Mrs. Crayford removed the cover from her newspaper as usual. Clara
+laid _her_ newspaper aside, unopened, on the garden seat.
+
+In silence, Mrs. Crayford looked, where she always looked, at the column
+devoted to the Latest Intelligence from foreign parts. The instant her
+eye fell on the page she started with a loud cry of joy. The newspaper
+fell from her trembling hand. She caught Clara in her arms. "Oh, my
+darling! my darling! news of them at last."
+
+Without answering, without the slightest change in look or manner, Clara
+took the newspaper from the ground, and read the top line in the column,
+printed in capital letters:
+
+THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.
+
+She waited, and looked at Mrs. Crayford.
+
+"Can you bear to hear it, Lucy," she asked, "if I read it aloud?"
+
+Mrs. Crayford was too agitated to answer in words. She signed
+impatiently to Clara to go on.
+
+Clara read the news which followed the heading in capital letters. Thus
+it ran:
+
+"The following intelligence, from St. Johns, Newfoundland, has reached
+us for publication. The whaling-vessel _Blythewood_ is reported to
+have met with the surviving officers and men of the Expedition in Davis
+Strait. Many are stated to be dead, and some are supposed to be missing.
+The list of the saved, as collected by the people of the whaler, is not
+vouched for as being absolutely correct, the circumstances having been
+adverse to investigation. The vessel was pressed for time; and the
+members of the Expedition, all more or less suffering from exhaustion,
+were not in a position to give the necessary assistance to inquiry.
+Further particulars may be looked for by the next mail."
+
+The list of the survivors followed, beginning with the officers in the
+order of their rank. They both read the list together. The first name
+was Captain Helding; the second was Lieutenant Crayford.
+
+There the wife's joy overpowered her. After a pause, she put her arm
+around Clara's waist, and spoke to her.
+
+"Oh, my love!" she murmured, "are you as happy as I am? Is Frank's
+name there too? The tears are in my eyes. Read for me--I can't read for
+myself."
+
+The answer came, in still, sad tones:
+
+"I have read as far as your husband's name. I have no need to read
+further."
+
+Mrs. Crayford dashed the tears from her eyes--steadied herself--and
+looked at the newspaper.
+
+On the list of the survivors, the search was vain. Frank's name was not
+among them. On a second list, headed "Dead or Missing," the first two
+names that appeared were:
+
+FRANCIS ALDERSLEY. RICHARD WARDOUR.
+
+In speechless distress and dismay, Mrs. Crayford looked at Clara. Had
+she force enough in her feeble health to sustain the shock that
+had fallen on her? Yes! she bore it with a strange unnatural
+resignation--she looked, she spoke, with the sad self-possession of
+despair.
+
+"I was prepared for it," she said. "I saw them in the spirit last night.
+Richard Wardour has discovered the truth; and Frank has paid the penalty
+with his life--and I, I alone, am to blame." She shuddered, and put her
+hand on her heart. "We shall not be long parted, Lucy. I shall go to
+him. He will not return to me."
+
+Those words were spoken with a calm certainty of conviction that was
+terrible to hear. "I have no more to say," she added, after a moment,
+and rose to return to the house. Mrs. Crayford caught her by the hand,
+and forced her to take her seat again.
+
+"Don't look at me, don't speak to me, in that horrible manner!" she
+exclaimed. "Clara! it is unworthy of a reasonable being, it is doubting
+the mercy of God, to say what you have just said. Look at the newspaper
+again. See! They tell you plainly that their information is not to be
+depended on--they warn you to wait for further particulars. The very
+words at the top of the list show how little they knew of the truth
+'Dead _or_ Missing!' On their own showing, it is quite as likely that
+Frank is missing as that Frank is dead. For all you know, the next mail
+may bring a letter from him. Are you listening to me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can you deny what I say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"'Yes!' 'No!' Is that the way to answer me when I am so distressed and
+so anxious about you?"
+
+"I am sorry I spoke as I did, Lucy. We look at some subjects in very
+different ways. I don't dispute, dear, that yours is the reasonable
+view."
+
+"You don't dispute?" retorted Mrs. Crayford, warmly. "No! you do what
+is worse--you believe in your own opinion; you persist in your own
+conclusion--with the newspaper before you! Do you, or do you not,
+believe the newspaper?"
+
+"I believe in what I saw last night."
+
+"In what you saw last night! You, an educated woman, a clever woman,
+believing in a vision of your own fancy--a mere dream! I wonder you are
+not ashamed to acknowledge it!"
+
+"Call it a dream if you like, Lucy. I have had other dreams at other
+times--and I have known them to be fulfilled."
+
+"Yes!" said Mrs. Crayford. "For once in a way they may have been
+fulfilled, by chance--and you notice it, and remember it, and pin your
+faith on it. Come, Clara, be honest!--What about the occasions when the
+chance has been against you, and your dreams have not been fulfilled?
+You superstitious people are all alike. You conveniently forget when
+your dreams and your presentiments prove false. For my sake, dear, if
+not for your own," she continued, in gentler and tenderer tones, "try
+to be more reasonable and more hopeful. Don't lose your trust in the
+future, and your trust in God. God, who has saved my husband, can save
+Frank. While there is doubt, there is hope. Don't embitter my happiness,
+Clara! Try to think as I think--if it is only to show that you love me."
+
+She put her arm round the girl's neck, and kissed her. Clara returned
+the kiss; Clara answered, sadly and submissively,
+
+"I do love you, Lucy. I _will_ try."
+
+Having answered in those terms, she sighed to herself, and said no more.
+It would have been plain, only too plain, to far less observant eyes
+than Mrs. Crayford's that no salutary impression had been produced on
+her. She had ceased to defend her own way of thinking, she spoke of
+it no more--but there was the terrible conviction of Frank's death at
+Wardour's hands rooted as firmly as ever in her mind! Discouraged and
+distressed, Mrs. Crayford left her, and walked back toward the house.
+
+
+
+Chapter 15.
+
+
+At the drawing-room window of the villa there appeared a polite little
+man, with bright intelligent eyes, and cheerful sociable manners. Neatly
+dressed in professional black, he stood, self-proclaimed, a prosperous
+country doctor--successful and popular in a wide circle of patients and
+friends. As Mrs. Crayford approached him, he stepped out briskly to
+meet her on the lawn, with both hands extended in courteous and cordial
+greeting.
+
+"My dear madam, accept my heartfelt congratulations!" cried the doctor.
+"I have seen the good news in the paper; and I could hardly feel more
+rejoiced than I do now if I had the honor of knowing Lieutenant Crayford
+personally. We mean to celebrate the occasion at home. I said to my
+wife before I came out, 'A bottle of the old Madeira at dinner to-day,
+mind!--to drink the lieutenant's health; God bless him!' And how is our
+interesting patient? The news is not altogether what we could wish, so
+far as she is concerned. I felt a little anxious, to tell you the truth,
+about the effect of it; and I have paid my visit to-day before my usual
+time. Not that I take a gloomy view of the news myself. No! There is
+clearly a doubt about the correctness of the information, so far as
+Mr. Aldersley is concerned--and that is a point, a great point in Mr.
+Aldersley's favor. I give him the benefit of the doubt, as the lawyers
+say. Does Miss Burnham give him the benefit of the doubt too? I hardly
+dare hope it, I confess."
+
+"Miss Burnham has grieved and alarmed me," Mrs. Crayford answered. "I
+was just thinking of sending for you when we met here."
+
+With those introductory words, she told the doctor exactly what had
+happened; repeating not only the conversation of that morning between
+Clara and herself, but also the words which had fallen from Clara, in
+the trance of the past night.
+
+The doctor listened attentively. Little by little, its easy smiling
+composure vanished from his face, as Mrs. Crayford went on, and left him
+completely transformed into a grave and thoughtful man.
+
+"Let us go and look at her," he said.
+
+He seated himself by Clara's side, and carefully studied her face, with
+his hand on her pulse. There was no sympathy here between the dreamy
+mystical temperament of the patient and the downright practical
+character of the doctor. Clara secretly disliked her medical attendant.
+She submitted impatiently to the close investigation of which he made
+her the object. He questioned her--and she answered irritably. Advancing
+a step further (the doctor was not easily discouraged) he adverted to
+the news of the Expedition, and took up the tone of remonstrance which
+had been already adopted by Mrs. Crayford. Clara declined to discuss the
+question. She rose with formal politeness, and requested permission to
+return to the house. The doctor attempted no further resistance. "By all
+means, Miss Burnham," he answered, resignedly--having first cast a look
+at Mrs. Crayford which said plainly, "Stay here with me." Clara bowed
+her acknowledgments in cold silence, and left them together. The
+doctor's bright eyes followed the girl's wasted, yet still graceful
+figure as it slowly receded from view, with an expression of grave
+anxiety which Mrs. Crayford noticed with grave misgiving on her side.
+He said nothing, until Clara had disappeared under the veranda which ran
+round the garden-side of the house.
+
+"I think you told me," he began, "that Miss Burnham has neither father
+nor mother living?"
+
+"Yes. Miss Burnham is an orphan."
+
+"Has she any near relatives?"
+
+"No. You may speak to me as her guardian and her friend. Are you alarmed
+about her?"
+
+"I am seriously alarmed. It is only two days since I called here last,
+and I see a marked change in her for the worse--physically and morally,
+a change for the worse. Don't needlessly alarm yourself! The case is
+not, I trust, entirely beyond the reach of remedy. The great hope for
+us is the hope that Mr. Aldersley may still be living. In that event,
+I should feel no misgivings about the future. Her marriage would make a
+healthy and a happy woman of her. But as things are, I own I dread that
+settled conviction in her mind that Mr. Aldersley is dead, and that her
+own death is soon to follow. In her present state of health this
+idea (haunting her as it certainly will night and day) will have its
+influence on her body as well as on her mind. Unless we can check the
+mischief, her last reserves of strength will give way. If you wish for
+other advice, by all means send for it. You have my opinion."
+
+"I am quite satisfied with your opinion," Mrs. Crayford replied. "For
+God's sake, tell me, what can we do?"
+
+"We can try a complete change," said the doctor. "We can remove her at
+once from this place."
+
+"She will refuse to leave it," Mrs. Crayford rejoined. "I have more than
+once proposed a change to her--and she always says No."
+
+The doctor paused for a moment, like a man collecting his thoughts.
+
+"I heard something on my way here," he proceeded, "which suggests to my
+mind a method of meeting the difficulty that you have just mentioned.
+Unless I am entirely mistaken, Miss Burnham will not say No to the
+change that I have in view for her."
+
+"What is it?" asked Mrs. Crayford, eagerly.
+
+"Pardon me if I ask you a question, on my part, before I reply," said
+the doctor. "Are you fortunate enough to possess any interest at the
+Admiralty?"
+
+"Certainly. My father is in the Secretary's office; and two of the Lords
+of the Admiralty are friends of his."
+
+"Excellent! Now I can speak out plainly with little fear of
+disappointing you. After what I have said, you will agree with me, that
+the only change in Miss Burnham's life which will be of any use to her
+is a change that will alter the present tone of her mind on the subject
+of Mr. Aldersley. Place her in a position to discover--not by reference
+to her own distempered fancies and visions, but by reference to actual
+evidence and actual fact--whether Mr. Aldersley is, or is not, a living
+man; and there will be an end of the hysterical delusions which now
+threaten to fatally undermine her health. Even taking matters at their
+worst--even assuming that Mr. Aldersley has died in the Arctic seas--it
+will be less injurious to her to discover this positively, than to leave
+her mind to feed on its own morbid superstitions and speculations, for
+weeks and weeks together, while the next news from the Expedition is on
+its way to England. In one word, I want you to be in a position, before
+the week is out, to put Miss Burnham's present conviction to a practical
+test. Suppose you could say to her, 'We differ, my dear, about Mr.
+Francis Aldersley. You declare, without the shadow of a reason for it,
+that he is certainly dead, and, worse still, that he has died by the
+act of one of his brother officers. I assert, on the authority of the
+newspaper, that nothing of the sort has happened, and that the chances
+are all in favor of his being still a living man. What do you say to
+crossing the Atlantic, and deciding which of us is right--you or I?'
+Do you think Miss Burnham will say No to that, Mrs. Crayford? If I know
+anything of human nature, she will seize the opportunity as a means of
+converting you to a belief in the Second Sight."
+
+"Good Heavens, doctor! do you mean to tell me that we are to go to sea
+and meet the Arctic Expedition on its way home?"
+
+"Admirably guessed, Mrs. Crayford! That is exactly what I mean."
+
+"But how is it to be done?"
+
+"I will tell you immediately. I mentioned--didn't I?--that I had heard
+something on my road to this house."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I met an old friend at my own gate, who walked with me a part of
+the way here. Last night my friend dined with the admiral at Portsmouth.
+Among the guests there was a member of the Ministry who had brought the
+news about the Expedition with him from London. This gentleman told the
+company there was very little doubt that the Admiralty would immediately
+send out a steam-vessel, to meet the rescued men on the shores of
+America, and bring them home. Wait a little, Mrs. Crayford! Nobody
+knows, as yet, under what rules and regulations the vessel will sail.
+Under somewhat similar circumstances, privileged people have been
+received as passengers, or rather as guests, in her majesty's ships--and
+what has been conceded on former occasions may, by bare possibility, be
+conceded now. I can say no more. If you are not afraid of the voyage for
+yourself, I am not afraid of it (nay, I am all in favor of it on medical
+grounds) for my patient. What do you say? Will you write to your father,
+and ask him to try what his interest will do with his friends at the
+Admiralty?"
+
+Mrs. Crayford rose excitedly to her feet.
+
+"Write!" she exclaimed. "I will do better than write. The journey to
+London is no great matter--and my housekeeper here is to be trusted
+to take care of Clara in my absence. I will see my father to-night! He
+shall make good use of his interest at the Admiralty--you may rely on
+that. Oh, my dear doctor, what a prospect it is! My husband! Clara!
+What a discovery you have made--what a treasure you are! How can I thank
+you?"
+
+"Compose yourself, my dear madam. Don't make too sure of success. We
+may consider Miss Burnham's objections as disposed of beforehand. But
+suppose the Lords of the Admiralty say No?"
+
+"In that case, I shall be in London, doctor; and I shall go to them
+myself. Lords are only men; and men are not in the habit of saying No to
+me."
+
+So they parted.
+
+
+
+In a week from that day, her majesty's ship _Amazon_ sailed for North
+America. Certain privileged persons, specially interested in the Arctic
+voyagers, were permitted to occupy the empty state-rooms on board.
+On the list of these favored guests of the ship were the names of two
+ladies--Mrs. Crayford and Miss Burnham.
+
+
+
+
+Fifth Scene--The Boat-House.
+
+
+
+Chapter 16.
+
+
+Once more the open sea--the sea whose waters break on the shores of
+Newfoundland! An English steamship lies at anchor in the offing. The
+vessel is plainly visible through the open doorway of a large boat-house
+on the shore--one of the buildings attached to a fishing-station on the
+coast of the island.
+
+The only person in the boat-house at this moment is a man in the dress
+of a sailor. He is seated on a chest, with a piece of cord in his hand,
+looking out idly at the sea. On the rough carpenter's table near him
+lies a strange object to be left in such a place--a woman's veil.
+
+What is the vessel lying at anchor in the offing?
+
+The vessel is the _Amazon_--dispatched from England to receive the
+surviving officers and men of the Arctic Expedition. The meeting has
+been successfully effected, on the shores of North America, three days
+since. But the homeward voyage has been delayed by a storm which has
+driven the ship out of her course. Taking advantage, on the third day,
+of the first returning calm, the commander of the _Amazon_ has anchored
+off the coast of Newfoundland, and has sent ashore to increase his
+supplies of water before he sails for England. The weary passengers have
+landed for a few hours, to refresh themselves after the discomforts of
+the tempest. Among them are the two ladies. The veil left on the table
+in the boat-house is Clara's veil.
+
+And who is the man sitting on the chest, with the cord in his hand,
+looking out idly at the sea? The man is the only cheerful person in the
+ship's company. In other words--John Want.
+
+Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is
+surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house door.
+
+"Look sharp with your work there, John Want!" says the sailor.
+"Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you."
+
+With this warning the messenger disappears again. John Want rises with
+a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten the cord
+round it. The ship's cook is not a man to look back on his rescue with
+the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which animates his companions
+in trouble. On the contrary, he is ungratefully disposed to regret the
+North Pole.
+
+"If I had only known"--thus runs the train of thought in the mind of
+John Want--"if I had only known, before I was rescued, that I was to be
+brought to this place, I believe I should have preferred staying at the
+North Pole. I was very happy keeping up everybody's spirits at the
+North Pole. Taking one thing with another, I think I must have been very
+comfortable at the North Pole--if I had only known it. Another man in
+my place might be inclined to say that this Newfoundland boat-house was
+rather a sloppy, slimy, draughty, fishy sort of a habitation to take
+shelter in. Another man might object to perpetual Newfoundland fogs,
+perpetual Newfoundland cod-fish, and perpetual Newfoundland dogs. We
+had some very nice bears at the North Pole. Never mind! it's all one to
+me--_I_ don't grumble."
+
+"Have you done cording that box?"
+
+This time the voice is a voice of authority--the man at the doorway is
+Lieutenant Crayford himself. John Want answers his officer in his own
+cheerful way.
+
+"I've done it as well as I can, sir--but the damp of this place is
+beginning to tell upon our very ropes. I say nothing about our lungs--I
+only say our ropes."
+
+Crayford answers sharply. He seems to have lost his former relish for
+the humor of John Want.
+
+"Pooh! To look at your wry face, one would think that our rescue from
+the Arctic regions was a downright misfortune. You deserve to be sent
+back again."
+
+"I could be just as cheerful as ever, sir, if I _was_ sent back again;
+I hope I'm thankful; but I don't like to hear the North Pole run down
+in such a fishy place as this. It was very clean and snowy at the
+North Pole--and it's very damp and sandy here. Do you never miss your
+bone-soup, sir? _I_ do. It mightn't have been strong; but it was very
+hot; and the cold seemed to give it a kind of a meaty flavor as it went
+down. Was it you that was a-coughing so long last night, sir? I don't
+presume to say anything against the air of these latitudes; but I should
+be glad to know it wasn't you that was a-coughing so hollow. Would you
+be so obliging as just to feel the state of these ropes with the ends of
+your fingers, sir? You can dry them afterward on the back of my jacket."
+
+"You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take that
+box down to the boat directly. You croaking vagabond! You would have
+grumbled in the Garden of Eden."
+
+The philosopher of the Expedition was not a man to be silenced by
+referring him to the Garden of Eden. Paradise itself was not perfect to
+John Want.
+
+"I hope I could be cheerful anywhere, sir," said the ship's cook. "But
+you mark my words--there must have been a deal of troublesome work with
+the flower-beds in the Garden of Eden."
+
+Having entered that unanswerable protest, John Want shouldered the box,
+and drifted drearily out of the boat-house.
+
+Left by himself, Crayford looked at his watch, and called to a sailor
+outside.
+
+"Where are the ladies?" he asked.
+
+"Mrs. Crayford is coming this way, sir. She was just behind you when you
+came in."
+
+"Is Miss Burnham with her?"
+
+"No, sir; Miss Burnham is down on the beach with the passengers. I heard
+the young lady asking after you, sir."
+
+"Asking after me?" Crayford considered with himself as he repeated the
+words. He added, in lower and graver tones, "You had better tell Miss
+Burnham you have seen me here."
+
+The man made his salute and went out. Crayford took a turn in the
+boat-house.
+
+Rescued from death in the Arctic wastes, and reunited to a beautiful
+wife, the lieutenant looked, nevertheless, unaccountably anxious and
+depressed. What could he be thinking of? He was thinking of Clara.
+
+On the first day when the rescued men were received on board the
+_Amazon_, Clara had embarrassed and distressed, not Crayford only, but
+the other officers of the Expedition as well, by the manner in which she
+questioned them on the subject of Francis Aldersley and Richard Wardour.
+She had shown no signs of dismay or despair when she heard that no news
+had been received of the two missing men. She had even smiled sadly to
+herself, when Crayford (out of compassionate regard for her) declared
+that he and his comrades had not given up the hope of seeing Frank and
+Wardour yet. It was only when the lieutenant had expressed himself in
+those terms and when it was hoped that the painful subject had been
+dismissed--that Clara had startled every one present by announcing that
+she had something still to say in relation to Frank and Wardour, which
+had not been said yet. Though she spoke guardedly, her next words
+revealed suspicions of foul play lurking in her mind--exactly reflecting
+similar suspicions lurking in Crayford's mind--which so distressed
+the lieutenant, and so surprised his comrades, as to render them quite
+incapable of answering her. The warnings of the storm which shortly
+afterward broke over the vessel were then visible in sea and sky.
+Crayford made them his excuse for abruptly leaving the cabin in which
+the conversation had taken place. His brother officers, profiting by his
+example, pleaded their duties on deck, and followed him out.
+
+On the next day, and the next, the tempest still raged--and the
+passengers were not able to leave their state-rooms. But now, when the
+weather had moderated and the ship had anchored--now, when officers
+and passengers alike were on shore, with leisure time at their
+disposal--Clara had opportunities of returning to the subject of the
+lost men, and of asking questions in relation to them which would make
+it impossible for Crayford to plead an excuse for not answering her. How
+was he to meet those questions? How could he still keep her in ignorance
+of the truth?
+
+These were the reflections which now troubled Crayford, and which
+presented him, after his rescue, in the strangely inappropriate
+character of a depressed and anxious man. His brother officers, as
+he well knew, looked to him to take the chief responsibility. If he
+declined to accept it, he would instantly confirm the horrible suspicion
+in Clara's mind. The emergency must be met; but how to meet it--at once
+honorably and mercifully--was more than Crayford could tell. He
+was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife entered the
+boat-house. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and
+anxieties plainly reflected in Mrs. Crayford's face.
+
+"Have you seen anything of Clara?" he asked. "Is she still on the
+beach?"
+
+"She is following me to this place," Mrs. Crayford replied. "I have been
+speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute as ever to insist
+on your telling her of the circumstances under which Frank is missing.
+As things are, you have no alternative but to answer her."
+
+"Help me to answer her, Lucy. Tell me, before she comes in, how this
+dreadful suspicion first took possession of her. All she could possibly
+have known when we left England was that the two men were appointed to
+separate ships. What could have led her to suspect that they had come
+together?"
+
+"She was firmly persuaded, William, that they _would_ come together when
+the Expedition left England. And she had read in books of Arctic travel,
+of men left behind by their comrades on the march, and of men adrift on
+ice-bergs. With her mind full of these images and forebodings, she saw
+Frank and Wardour (or dreamed of them) in one of her attacks of trance.
+I was by her side; I heard what she said at the time. She warned Frank
+that Wardour had discovered the truth. She called out to him, 'While you
+can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!'"
+
+"Good God!" cried Crayford; "I warned him myself, almost in those very
+words, the last time I saw him!"
+
+"Don't acknowledge it, William! Keep her in ignorance of what you
+have just told me. She will not take it for what it is--a startling
+coincidence, and nothing more. She will accept it as positive
+confirmation of the faith, the miserable superstitious faith, that is in
+her. So long as you don't actually know that Frank is dead, and that he
+has died by Wardour's hand, deny what she says--mislead her for her own
+sake--dispute all her conclusions as I dispute them. Help me to raise
+her to the better and nobler belief in the mercy of God!" She stopped,
+and looked round nervously at the doorway. "Hush!" she whispered. "Do as
+I have told you. Clara is here."
+
+
+
+Chapter 17.
+
+
+Clara stopped at the doorway, looking backward and forward distrustfully
+between the husband and wife. Entering the boat-house, and approaching
+Crayford, she took his arm, and led him away a few steps from the place
+in which Mrs. Crayford was standing.
+
+"There is no storm now, and there are no duties to be done on board the
+ship," she said, with the faint, sad smile which it wrung Crayford's
+heart to see. "You are Lucy's husband, and you have an interest in me
+for Lucy's sake. Don't shrink on that account from giving me pain: I
+can bear pain. Friend and brother! will you believe that I have courage
+enough to hear the worst? Will you promise not to deceive me about
+Frank?"
+
+The gentle resignation in her voice, the sad pleading in her look, shook
+Crayford's self-possession at the outset. He answered her in the worst
+possible manner; he answered evasively.
+
+"My dear Clara," he said, "what have I done that you should suspect me
+of deceiving you?"
+
+She looked him searchingly in the face, then glanced with renewed
+distrust at Mrs. Crayford. There was a moment of silence. Before any of
+the three could speak again, they were interrupted by the appearance of
+one of Crayford's brother officers, followed by two sailors carrying a
+hamper between them. Crayford instantly dropped Clara's arm, and seized
+the welcome opportunity of speaking of other things.
+
+"Any instructions from the ship, Steventon?" he asked, approaching the
+officer.
+
+"Verbal instructions only," Steventon replied. "The ship will sail with
+the flood-tide. We shall fire a gun to collect the people, and send
+another boat ashore. In the meantime here are some refreshments for the
+passengers. The ship is in a state of confusion; the ladies will eat
+their luncheon more comfortably here."
+
+Hearing this, Mrs. Crayford took _her_ opportunity of silencing Clara
+next.
+
+"Come, my dear," she said. "Let us lay the cloth before the gentlemen
+come in."
+
+Clara was too seriously bent on attaining the object which she had
+in view to be silenced in that way. "I will help you directly," she
+answered--then crossed the room and addressed herself to the officer,
+whose name was Steventon.
+
+"Can you spare me a few minutes?" she asked. "I have something to say to
+you."
+
+"I am entirely at your service, Miss Burnham."
+
+Answering in those words, Steventon dismissed the two sailors. Mrs.
+Crayford looked anxiously at her husband. Crayford whispered to her,
+"Don't be alarmed about Steventon. I have cautioned him; his discretion
+is to be depended on."
+
+Clara beckoned to Crayford to return to her.
+
+"I will not keep you long," she said. "I will promise not to distress
+Mr. Steventon. Young as I am, you shall both find that I am capable
+of self-control. I won't ask you to go back to the story of your past
+sufferings; I only want to be sure that I am right about one thing--I
+mean about what happened at the time when the exploring party was
+dispatched in search of help. As I understand it, you cast lots among
+yourselves who was to go with the party, and who was to remain behind.
+Frank cast the lot to go." She paused, shuddering. "And Richard
+Wardour," she went on, "cast the lot to remain behind. On your honor, as
+officers and gentlemen, is this the truth?"
+
+"On my honor," Crayford answered, "it is the truth."
+
+"On my honor," Steventon repeated, "it is the truth."
+
+She looked at them, carefully considering her next words, before she
+spoke again.
+
+"You both drew the lot to stay in the huts," she said, addressing
+Crayford and Steventon. "And you are both here. Richard Wardour drew the
+lot to stay, and Richard Wardour is not here. How does his name come to
+be with Frank's on the list of the missing?"
+
+The question was a dangerous one to answer. Steventon left it to
+Crayford to reply. Once again he answered evasively.
+
+"It doesn't follow, my dear," he said, "that the two men were missing
+together because their names happen to come together on the list."
+
+Clara instantly drew the inevitable conclusion from that ill-considered
+reply.
+
+"Frank is missing from the party of relief," she said. "Am I to
+understand that Wardour is missing from the huts?"
+
+Both Crayford and Steventon hesitated. Mrs. Crayford cast one indignant
+look at them, and told the necessary lie, without a moment's hesitation!
+
+"Yes!" she said. "Wardour is missing from the huts."
+
+Quickly as she had spoken, she had still spoken too late. Clara had
+noticed the momentary hesitation on the part of the two officers. She
+turned to Steventon.
+
+"I trust to your honor," she said, quietly. "Am I right, or wrong, in
+believing that Mrs. Crayford is mistaken?"
+
+She had addressed herself to the right man of the two. Steventon had
+no wife present to exercise authority over him. Steventon, put on his
+honor, and fairly forced to say something, owned the truth. Wardour had
+replaced an officer whom accident had disabled from accompanying the
+party of relief, and Wardour and Frank were missing together.
+
+Clara looked at Mrs. Crayford.
+
+"You hear?" she said. "It is you who are mistaken, not I. What you
+call 'Accident,' what I call 'Fate,' brought Richard Wardour and Frank
+together as members of the same Expedition, after all." Without waiting
+for a reply, she again turned to Steventon, and surprised him by
+changing the painful subject of the conversation of her own accord.
+
+"Have you been in the Highlands of Scotland?" she asked.
+
+"I have never been in the Highlands," the lieutenant replied.
+
+"Have you ever read, in books about the Highlands, of such a thing as
+'The Second Sight'?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you believe in the Second Sight?"
+
+Steventon politely declined to commit himself to a direct reply.
+
+"I don't know what I might have done, if I had ever been in the
+Highlands," he said. "As it is, I have had no opportunities of giving
+the subject any serious consideration."
+
+"I won't put your credulity to the test," Clara proceeded. "I won't ask
+you to believe anything more extraordinary than that I had a strange
+dream in England not very long since. My dream showed me what you have
+just acknowledged--and more than that. How did the two missing men come
+to be parted from their companions? Were they lost by pure accident, or
+were they deliberately left behind on the march?"
+
+Crayford made a last vain effort to check her inquiries at the point
+which they had now reached.
+
+"Neither Steventon nor I were members of the party of relief," he said.
+"How are we to answer you?"
+
+"Your brother officers who _were_ members of the party must have told
+you what happened," Clara rejoined. "I only ask you and Mr. Steventon to
+tell me what they told you."
+
+Mrs. Crayford interposed again, with a practical suggestion this time.
+
+"The luncheon is not unpacked yet," she said. "Come, Clara! this is our
+business, and the time is passing."
+
+"The luncheon can wait a few minutes longer," Clara answered. "Bear with
+my obstinacy," she went on, laying her hand caressingly on Crayford's
+shoulder. "Tell me how those two came to be separated from the rest. You
+have always been the kindest of friends--don't begin to be cruel to me
+now!"
+
+The tone in which she made her entreaty to Crayford went straight to
+the sailor's heart. He gave up the hopeless struggle: he let her see a
+glimpse of the truth.
+
+"On the third day out," he said, "Frank's strength failed him. He fell
+behind the rest from fatigue."
+
+"Surely they waited for him?"
+
+"It was a serious risk to wait for him, my child. Their lives (and the
+lives of the men they had left in the huts) depended, in that dreadful
+climate, on their pushing on. But Frank was a favorite. They waited half
+a day to give Frank the chance of recovering his strength."
+
+There he stopped. There the imprudence into which his fondness for Clara
+had led him showed itself plainly, and closed his lips.
+
+It was too late to take refuge in silence. Clara was determined on
+hearing more.
+
+She questioned Steventon next.
+
+"Did Frank go on again after the half-day's rest?" she asked.
+
+"He tried to go on--"
+
+"And failed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What did the men do when he failed? Did they turn cowards? Did they
+desert Frank?"
+
+She had purposely used language which might irritate Steventon into
+answering her plainly. He was a young man--he fell into the snare that
+she had set for him.
+
+"Not one among them was a coward, Miss Burnham!" he replied, warmly.
+"You are speaking cruelly and unjustly of as brave a set of fellows as
+ever lived! The strongest man among them set the example; he volunteered
+to stay by Frank, and to bring him on in the track of the exploring
+party."
+
+There Steventon stopped--conscious, on his side, that he had said too
+much. Would she ask him who this volunteer was? No. She went straight on
+to the most embarrassing question that she had put yet--referring to the
+volunteer, as if Steventon had already mentioned his name.
+
+"What made Richard Wardour so ready to risk his life for Frank's sake?"
+she said to Crayford. "Did he do it out of friendship for Frank? Surely
+you can tell me that? Carry your memory back to the days when you were
+all living in the huts. Were Frank and Wardour friends at that time? Did
+you never hear any angry words pass between them?"
+
+There Mrs. Crayford saw her opportunity of giving her husband a timely
+hint.
+
+"My dear child!" she said; "how can you expect him to remember that?
+There must have been plenty of quarrels among the men, all shut up
+together, and all weary of each other's company, no doubt."
+
+"Plenty of quarrels!" Crayford repeated; "and every one of them made up
+again."
+
+"And every one of them made up again," Mrs. Crayford reiterated, in her
+turn. "There! a plainer answer than that you can't wish to have. Now are
+you satisfied? Mr. Steventon, come and lend a hand (as you say at sea)
+with the hamper--Clara won't help me. William, don't stand there doing
+nothing. This hamper holds a great deal; we must have a division of
+labor. Your division shall be laying the tablecloth. Don't handle it
+in that clumsy way! You unfold a table-cloth as if you were unfurling
+a sail. Put the knives on the right, and the forks on the left, and the
+napkin and the bread between them. Clara, if you are not hungry in this
+fine air, you ought to be. Come and do your duty; come and have some
+lunch!"
+
+She looked up as she spoke. Clara appeared to have yielded at last to
+the conspiracy to keep her in the dark. She had returned slowly to the
+boat-house doorway, and she was standing alone on the threshold, looking
+out. Approaching her to lead her to the luncheon-table, Mrs. Crayford
+could hear that she was speaking softly to herself. She was repeating
+the farewell words which Richard Wardour had spoken to her at the ball.
+
+"'A time may come when I shall forgive _you_. But the man who has robbed
+me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.' Oh, Frank!
+Frank! does Richard still live, with your blood on his conscience, and
+my image in his heart?"
+
+Her lips suddenly closed. She started, and drew back from the doorway,
+trembling violently. Mrs. Crayford looked out at the quiet seaward view.
+
+"Anything there that frightens you, my dear?" she asked. "I can see
+nothing, except the boats drawn up on the beach."
+
+"_I_ can see nothing either, Lucy."
+
+"And yet you are trembling as if there was something dreadful in the
+view from this door."
+
+"There _is_ something dreadful! I feel it, though I see nothing. I feel
+it, nearer and nearer in the empty air, darker and darker in the sunny
+light. I don't know what it is. Take me away! No. Not out on the beach.
+I can't pass the door. Somewhere else! somewhere else!"
+
+Mrs. Crayford looked round her, and noticed a second door at the inner
+end of the boat-house. She spoke to her husband.
+
+"See where that door leads to, William."
+
+Crayford opened the door. It led into a desolate inclosure, half garden,
+half yard. Some nets stretched on poles were hanging up to dry. No other
+objects were visible--not a living creature appeared in the place. "It
+doesn't look very inviting, my dear," said Mrs. Crayford. "I am at your
+service, however. What do you say?"
+
+She offered her arm to Clara as she spoke. Clara refused it. She took
+Crayford's arm, and clung to him.
+
+"I'm frightened, dreadfully frightened!" she said to him, faintly. "You
+keep with me--a woman is no protection; I want to be with you." She
+looked round again at the boat-house doorway. "Oh!" she whispered, "I'm
+cold all over--I'm frozen with fear of this place. Come into the yard!
+Come into the yard!"
+
+"Leave her to me," said Crayford to his wife. "I will call you, if she
+doesn't get better in the open air."
+
+He took her out at once, and closed the yard door behind them.
+
+"Mr. Steventon, do you understand this?" asked Mrs. Crayford. "What can
+she possibly be frightened of?"
+
+She put the question, still looking mechanically at the door by which
+her husband and Clara had gone out. Receiving no reply, she glanced
+round at Steventon. He was standing on the opposite side of the
+luncheon-table, with his eyes fixed attentively on the view from the
+main doorway of the boat-house. Mrs. Crayford looked where Steventon was
+looking. This time there was something visible. She saw the shadow of a
+human figure projected on the stretch of smooth yellow sand in front of
+the boat-house.
+
+In a moment more the figure appeared. A man came slowly into view, and
+stopped on the threshold of the door.
+
+
+
+Chapter 18.
+
+
+The man was a sinister and terrible object to look at. His eyes glared
+like the eyes of a wild animal; his head was bare; his long gray hair
+was torn and tangled; his miserable garments hung about him in rags. He
+stood in the doorway, a speechless figure of misery and want, staring at
+the well-spread table like a hungry dog.
+
+Steventon spoke to him.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+He answered, in a hoarse, hollow voice,
+
+"A starving man."
+
+He advanced a few steps, slowly and painfully, as if he were sinking
+under fatigue.
+
+"Throw me some bones from the table," he said. "Give me my share along
+with the dogs."
+
+There was madness as well as hunger in his eyes while he spoke those
+words. Steventon placed Mrs. Crayford behind him, so that he might be
+easily able to protect her in case of need, and beckoned to two sailors
+who were passing the door of the boat-house at the time.
+
+"Give the man some bread and meat," he said, "and wait near him."
+
+The outcast seized on the bread and meat with lean, long-nailed hands
+that looked like claws. After his first mouthful of the food, he
+stopped, considered vacantly with himself, and broke the bread and meat
+into two portions. One portion he put into an old canvas wallet that
+hung over his shoulder; the other he devoured voraciously. Steventon
+questioned him.
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"From the sea."
+
+"Wrecked?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Steventon turned to Mrs. Crayford.
+
+"There may be some truth in the poor wretch's story," he said. "I heard
+something of a strange boat having been cast on the beach thirty or
+forty miles higher up the coast. When were you wrecked, my man?"
+
+The starving creature looked up from his food, and made an effort to
+collect his thoughts--to exert his memory. It was not to be done. He
+gave up the attempt in despair. His language, when he spoke, was as wild
+as his looks.
+
+"I can't tell you," he said. "I can't get the wash of the sea out of my
+ears. I can't get the shining stars all night, and the burning sun all
+day, out of my brain. When was I wrecked? When was I first adrift in the
+boat? When did I get the tiller in my hand and fight against hunger and
+sleep? When did the gnawing in my breast, and the burning in my head,
+first begin? I have lost all reckoning of it. I can't think; I can't
+sleep; I can't get the wash of the sea out of my ears. What are you
+baiting me with questions for? Let me eat!"
+
+Even the sailors pitied him. The sailors asked leave of their officer to
+add a little drink to his meal.
+
+"We've got a drop of grog with us, sir, in a bottle. May we give it to
+him?"
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+He took the bottle fiercely, as he had taken the food, drank a little,
+stopped, and considered with himself again. He held up the bottle to the
+light, and, marking how much liquor it contained, carefully drank half
+of it only. This done, he put the bottle in his wallet along with the
+food.
+
+"Are you saving it up for another time?" said Steventon.
+
+"I'm saving it up," the man answered. "Never mind what for. That's my
+secret."
+
+He looked round the boat-house as he made that reply, and noticed Mrs.
+Crayford for the first time.
+
+"A woman among you!" he said. "Is she English? Is she young? Let me look
+closer at her."
+
+He advanced a few steps toward the table.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Crayford," said Steventon.
+
+"I am not afraid," Mrs. Crayford replied. "He frightened me at first--he
+interests me now. Let him speak to me if he wishes it!"
+
+He never spoke. He stood, in dead silence, looking long and anxiously at
+the beautiful Englishwoman.
+
+"Well?" said Steventon.
+
+He shook his head sadly, and drew back again with a heavy sigh.
+
+"No!" he said to himself, "that's not _her_ face. No! not found yet."
+
+Mrs. Crayford's interest was strongly excited. She ventured to speak to
+him.
+
+"Who is it you want to find?" she asked. "Your wife?"
+
+He shook his head again.
+
+"Who, then? What is she like?"
+
+He answered that question in words. His hoarse, hollow voice softened,
+little by little, into sorrowful and gentle tones.
+
+"Young," he said; "with a fair, sad face--with kind, tender eyes--with a
+soft, clear voice. Young and loving and merciful. I keep her face in
+my mind, though I can keep nothing else. I must wander, wander,
+wander--restless, sleepless, homeless--till I find _her!_ Over the ice
+and over the snow; tossing on the sea, tramping over the land; awake all
+night, awake all day; wander, wander, wander, till I find _her!_"
+
+He waved his hand with a gesture of farewell, and turned wearily to go
+out.
+
+At the same moment Crayford opened the yard door.
+
+"I think you had better come to Clara," he began, and checked himself,
+noticing the stranger. "Who is that?"
+
+The shipwrecked man, hearing another voice in the room, looked round
+slowly over his shoulder. Struck by his appearance, Crayford advanced
+a little nearer to him. Mrs. Crayford spoke to her husband as he passed
+her.
+
+"It's only a poor, mad creature, William," she whispered--"shipwrecked
+and starving."
+
+"Mad?" Crayford repeated, approaching nearer and nearer to the man. "Am
+_I_ in my right senses?" He suddenly sprang on the outcast, and seized
+him by the throat. "Richard Wardour!" he cried, in a voice of fury.
+"Alive!--alive, to answer for Frank!"
+
+The man struggled. Crayford held him.
+
+"Where is Frank?" he said. "You villain, where is Frank?"
+
+The man resisted no longer. He repeated vacantly,
+
+"Villain? and where is Frank?"
+
+As the name escaped his lips, Clara appeared at the open yard door, and
+hurried into the room.
+
+"I heard Richard's name!" she said. "I heard Frank's name! What does it
+mean?"
+
+At the sound of her voice the outcast renewed the struggle to free
+himself, with a sudden frenzy of strength which Crayford was not able to
+resist. He broke away before the sailors could come to their officer's
+assistance. Half-way down the length of the room he and Clara met one
+another face to face. A new light sparkled in the poor wretch's eyes; a
+cry of recognition burst from his lips. He flung one hand up wildly in
+the air. "Found!" he shouted, and rushed out to the beach before any of
+the men present could stop him.
+
+Mrs. Crayford put her arms round Clara and held her up. She had not made
+a movement: she had not spoken a word. The sight of Wardour's face had
+petrified her.
+
+The minutes passed, and there rose a sudden burst of cheering from the
+sailors on the beach, near the spot where the fishermen's boats were
+drawn up. Every man left his work. Every man waved his cap in the air.
+The passengers, near at hand, caught the infection of enthusiasm, and
+joined the crew. A moment more, and Richard Wardour appeared again in
+the doorway, carrying a man in his arms. He staggered, breathless with
+the effort that he was making, to the place where Clara stood, held up
+in Mrs. Crayford's arms.
+
+"Saved, Clara!" he cried. "Saved for _you!_"
+
+He released the man, and placed him in Clara's arms.
+
+Frank! foot-sore and weary--but living--saved; saved for _her!_
+
+"Now, Clara!" cried Mrs. Crayford, "which of us is right? I who believed
+in the mercy of God? or you who believed in a dream?"
+
+She never answered; she clung to Frank in speechless ecstasy. She never
+even looked at the man who had preserved him, in the first absorbing joy
+of seeing Frank alive. Step by step, slower and slower, Richard Wardour
+drew back, and left them by themselves.
+
+"I may rest now," he said, faintly. "I may sleep at last. The task is
+done. The struggle is over."
+
+His last reserves of strength had been given to Frank. He stopped--he
+staggered--his hands waved feebly in search of support. But for one
+faithful friend he would have fallen. Crayford caught him. Crayford laid
+his old comrade gently on some sails strewn in a corner, and pillowed
+Wardour's weary head on his own bosom. The tears streamed over his face.
+"Richard! dear Richard!" he said. "Remember--and forgive me."
+
+Richard neither heeded nor heard him. His dim eyes still looked across
+the room at Clara and Frank.
+
+"I have made _her_ happy!" he murmured. "I may lay down my weary head
+now on the mother earth that hushes all her children to rest at last.
+Sink, heart! sink, sink to rest! Oh, look at them!" he said to Crayford,
+with a burst of grief. "They have forgotten _me_ already."
+
+It was true! The interest was all with the two lovers. Frank was young
+and handsome and popular. Officers, passengers, and sailors, they all
+crowded round Frank. They all forgot the martyred man who had saved
+him--the man who was dying in Crayford's arms.
+
+Crayford tried once more to attract his attention--to win his
+recognition while there was yet time. "Richard, speak to me! Speak to
+your old friend!"
+
+He look round; he vacantly repeated Crayford's last word.
+
+"Friend?" he said. "My eyes are dim, friend--my mind is dull. I have
+lost all memories but the memory of _her_. Dead thoughts--all dead
+thoughts but that one! And yet you look at me kindly! Why has your face
+gone down with the wreck of all the rest?"
+
+He paused; his face changed; his thoughts drifted back from present to
+past; he looked at Crayford vacantly, lost in the terrible remembrances
+that were rising in him, as the shadows rise with the coming night.
+
+"Hark ye, friend," he whispered. "Never let Frank know it. There was a
+time when the fiend within me hungered for his life. I had my hands on
+the boat. I heard the voice of the Tempter speaking to me: Launch it,
+and leave him to die! I waited with my hands on the boat, and my eyes on
+the place where he slept. 'Leave him! leave him!' the voice whispered.
+'Love him!' the lad's voice answered, moaning and murmuring in his
+sleep. 'Love him, Clara, for helping _me!_' I heard the morning wind
+come up in the silence over the great deep. Far and near, I heard the
+groaning of the floating ice; floating, floating to the clear water and
+the balmy air. And the wicked Voice floated away with it--away, away,
+away forever! 'Love him! love him, Clara, for helping _me!_' No wind
+could float that away! 'Love him, Clara--'"
+
+His voice sank into silence; his head dropped on Crayford's breast.
+Frank saw it. Frank struggled up on his bleeding feet and parted the
+friendly throng round him. Frank had not forgotten the man who had saved
+him.
+
+"Let me go to him!" he cried. "I must and will go to him! Clara, come
+with me."
+
+Clara and Steventon supported him between them. He fell on his knees at
+Wardour's side; he put his hand on Wardour's bosom.
+
+"Richard!"
+
+The weary eyes opened again. The sinking voice was heard feebly once
+more.
+
+"Ah! poor Frank. I didn't forget you, Frank, when I came here to beg.
+I remembered you lying down outside in the shadow of the boats. I saved
+you your share of the food and drink. Too weak to get at it now! A
+little rest, Frank! I shall soon be strong enough to carry you down to
+the ship."
+
+The end was near. They all saw it now. The men reverently uncovered
+their heads in the presence of Death. In an agony of despair, Frank
+appealed to the friends round him.
+
+"Get something to strengthen him, for God's sake! Oh, men! men! I should
+never have been here but for him! He has given all his strength to my
+weakness; and now, see how strong I am, and how weak _he_ is! Clara, I
+held by his arm all over the ice and snow. _He_ kept watch when I was
+senseless in the open boat. _His_ hand dragged me out of the waves when
+we were wrecked. Speak to him, Clara! speak to him!" His voice failed
+him, and his head dropped on Wardour's breast.
+
+She spoke, as well as her tears would let her.
+
+"Richard, have you forgotten me?"
+
+He rallied at the sound of that beloved voice. He looked up at her as
+she knelt at his head.
+
+"Forgotten you?" Still looking at her, he lifted his hand with an
+effort, and laid it on Frank. "Should I have been strong enough to save
+him, if I could have forgotten you?" He waited a moment and turned his
+face feebly toward Crayford. "Stay!" he said. "Someone was here and
+spoke to me." A faint light of recognition glimmered in his eyes. "Ah,
+Crayford! I recollect now. Dear Crayford! come nearer! My mind clears,
+but my eyes grow dim. You will remember me kindly for Frank's sake? Poor
+Frank! why does he hide his face? Is he crying? Nearer, Clara--I want to
+look my last at _you_. My sister, Clara! Kiss me, sister, kiss me before
+I die!"
+
+She stooped and kissed his forehead. A faint smile trembled on his
+lips. It passed away; and stillness possessed the face--the stillness of
+Death.
+
+Crayford's voice was heard in the silence.
+
+"The loss is ours," he said. "The gain is his. He has won the greatest
+of all conquests--the conquest of himself. And he has died in the moment
+of victory. Not one of us here but may live to envy _his_ glorious
+death."
+
+The distant report of a gun came from the ship in the offing, and
+signaled the return to England and to home.
+
+
+
+
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Frozen Deep, by Wilkie Collins
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