The Frozen Deep.................................................................................................................................................1

The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an English seaport. The time is night. And the

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 numberthe _Wanderer_ and the

_Seamew_. 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

bewilderingand the average of beauty (a subject which the men do understand) is the highest average

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 womanhoodthe 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 Burnhaman 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 visavisin plain English, for opposite

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

"I am glad to hear that. She is a charming creature, Mrs. Crayford. She interests me indescribably. If I was

only twenty years youngerperhaps (as I am not twenty years younger) I had better not finish the sentence?

"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."

"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 Northespecially the superstition called the

"God bless me!" cried the captain, "you don't mean to say she believes in such stuff as that? In these

"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 somethingin the shape of poetryto recommend it, surely? Estimate for yourself," she

continued seriously, "the effect of such surroundings as I have described on a delicate, sensitive young

creaturea 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. Crayfordnot 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

"That is the Second Sight, captain. And that is, really and positively, what she does."

The captain waited a littleletting 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

"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 countryperfect 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 closedher feet failed herand she sank insensible into our arms."

"Sank insensible into your arms," repeated the captain, absorbing his new information. "Most extraordinary!

Andin this state of healthshe goes out to parties, and dances. More extraordinary still!"

"You are entirely mistaken," said Mrs. Crayford. "She is only here tonight 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

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 describedand

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 maladythe hysterical malady as some doctors would call itfrom which

she suffers. I can give you instructions for preserving her general health; and I can recommend you to try

some change in her lifeprovided you first relieve her mind of any secret anxieties that may possibly be

The captain smiled selfapprovingly. The doctor had justified his anticipations. The doctor had suggested a

"Ay! ay! At last we have hit the nail on the h ead! Secret anxieties. Yes! yes! Plain enough now. A

"I don't know, Captain Helding; I am quite in the dark. Clara's confidence in mein other matters

unboundedis, 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

"Encouragement is all she wants, ma'am. Take my word for it, this matter rests entirely with you. It's all in a

"I am waiting to encourage her, captain, until she is left alone with meafter 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

"Do you know," he began, "that the _Atalanta_ is expected back from the West Coast of Africa every day?

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 momentto the

astonishment of her friends and admirersMiss 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

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

"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

Mrs. Crayford declined to humor the joke. "If you will excuse my leaving you," she said quietly, "I will try

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 lovedincluding his wife.

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

"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

"If I only dared tell you!" she murmured. "I hold so to your good opinion of me, Lucyand I am so afraid of

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

"Will you promise to keep what I tell you a secret from every living creature?" she began.

"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

"Nonsense, child! When you are married, you will know that the easiest of all secrets to keep is a secret from

"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

"You are not ill, you are not really affected by the heatand yet you turn as pale as ashes, and you are

"He told you something about the _Atalanta_. He said the _Atalanta_ was expected back from Africa

"Well, and what of that? Is there anybody in whom you are interested coming home in the ship?"

"Wait a little, Lucy, and you shall judge for yourself. We must go backif I am to make you understand

meto the year before we knew each otherto 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 countryseat 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

She paused, and played nervously with her fan. Mrs. Crayford looked at her attentively. Clara's eyes

remained fixed on her fanClara said no more. "What was the son's name?" asked Mrs. Crayford, quietly.

"I hardly knew at first," she said, "whether he admired me or not. He was very strange in his

waysheadstrong, terribly headstrong and passionate; but generous and affectionate in spite of his faults of

"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

"No. He was notunhappily for mehe 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

"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

"Impossible! You forget what I have just told you. My father was suffering at that time under the illness

"Nothing. I hesitated; I put off coming to an explanation with him, unfortunately, until it was too late."

"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 sittingroom, and it opened on to the garden."

"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

againhe 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."

"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

"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 EnglandRichard Wardour will claim me as his wife! You wondered just now if I really meant

Mrs. Crayford leaned back absently in her chair. For the first time since the conversation had begun, she let a

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 heresomething of importance that still

remained to be discovered. A shrewd doubt crossed Mrs. Crayford's mind, and inspired the next words which

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.

"A friend of yours, my dear?" she asked, innocently. "Suppose you introduce us to each other."

"Attached to the expedition?" Mrs. Crayford repeated. "I am attached to the expedition tooin 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?"

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, gentlemanlike 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

"One word, my dear, before you return to the ballroom. 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

"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

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 triesvery feeblyto dismiss him.

He seats himself by her side, and feasts his eyes on the lovely downcast face that dares not turn toward him.

She longs to call him Frankshe 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

"Clara! have you forgotten what I said at the concert yesterday? May I say it again?"

"We sail tomorrow for the Arctic seas. I may not return for years. Don't send me away without hope! Think

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

Her faithful heart takes his part, in spite of her. Her hand remains in his, and feels its soft persuasive pressure.

There is a pause. She shrinks from looking at himshe 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

She closes her eyes faintlyshe hears nothing but those wordsfeels nothing but his arm round her

forgets Mrs. Crayford's warningforgets Richard Wardour himselfturns suddenly, with a loving

woman's desperate disregard of everything but her lovenestles her head on his bosom, and answers him in

He lifts the beautiful drooping headtheir lips meet in their first kissthey are both in heaven: it is Clara

who brings them back to earth again with a startit is Clara who says, "Oh! what have I done?"as usual,

"You have made me happy, my angel. Now, when I come back, I come back to make you my wife."

"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

"Go!" she says. "I want to see Mrs. Crayford. Find her! Say I am here, waiting to speak to her. Go at once,

There is no alternative but to obey her. His eyes drink a last draught of her beauty. He hurries away on his

errandthe happiest man in the room. Five minutes since she was only his partner in the dance. He has

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,

heavybrowed, stronglybuilt man, dressed in a shabby old naval officer's uniform. His mannerstrikingly

resolute and selfcontainedwas 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 conservatoryentered it, after a moment's reflectiondetected the

glimmer of a white dress in the distance, through the shrubs and flowersadvanced to get a nearer view of

She sprang to her feet. She stood before him speechless, motionless, struck to stone. All her life was in her

"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

A momentary change passed over the blank terror of her face. Her color rose faintly, her lips moved. She

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 chairshrank, as if she was frightened of

He paused; waiting and watching her. She made no reply. A flash of the quick temper in him leaped up in his

She replied this time. His tone had hurt herhis tone had roused her sinking courage.

"You have been under a wrong impression, and you have given me no opportunity of setting you right."

"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.

He mechanically repeated the last words. He seemed to doubt whether he had heard her aright.

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 ityou force

"Has that other man come between you and me? I speak plainly on my side. Speak plainly on yours."

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

"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

"Mr. Wardour! you forget yourself when you call me to account in that way. I never encouraged you. I never

"You have engaged yourself in my absence. Your words own it; your looks own it! You have engaged

"If I _have_ engaged myself, what right have you to complain of it?" she answered firmly. "What right have

The next words died away on her lips. He suddenly dropped her hand. A marked change appeared in the

expression of his eyesa 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 tremblenot 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

"Say no more, Miss Burnhamyou have said enough. I am answered; I am dismissed." He paused, and,

"The time may come," he said, "when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue

A few minutes later, Mrs. Crayford, entering the conservatory, was met by one of the attendants at the ball.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am. Do you happen to have a smellingbottle about you? There is a young lady in the

The morning of the next daythe morning on which the ships were to sailcame bright and breezy. Mrs.

Crayford, having arranged to follow her husband to the waterside, 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 nightafter the shock of seeing that

"Compose yourself, Clara. I have neither seen nor heard anything of Richard Wardour. Take my word for it,

"No! He is here! He is near us! All night long the presentiment has pursued meFrank and Richard Wardour

"My dear child! what are you thinking of? T hey are total strangers to each other."

"Something will happen to bring them together. I feel it! I know it! They will meetthere will be a mortal

quarrel between themand 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 landingstage? I am all readyI must go

"You must not think of it, Clara. There will be crowding and confusion at the waterside. You are not strong

"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

It was useless to contend with her. Mrs. Crayford yielded. The two women left the house together.

The landingstage, 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

"The _Seamew_'s boats are waiting," he said. "I must go, darling. How pale you are looking, Clara! Are you

"Anything out of the common?" he repeated. "Nothing that I know of, except sailing for the Arctic seas.

"Has anybody spoken to you since last night? Has any stranger followed you in the street?"

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 allit's not worth talking about. Hark! they are calling you. Say

Frank took Clara's hand. Long afterwardin the dark Arctic days, in the dreary Arctic nightshe

"Courage, Clara!" he said, gayly. "A sailor's sweetheart must accustom herself to partings. The time will soon

He kissed the cold hand; he looked his lastfor 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.

"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."

"What! still looking for him? This is really too absurd. Here is my husband coming. I shall tell him to call a

"I won't be in the way, Lucy, while you are taking leave of your good husband," she said. "I will wait here."

Mrs. Crayford turned to her husband without another word. Clara's infatuation was beyond the reach of

The boats of the _Wanderer_ took the place at the landingstage vacated by the boats of the _Seamew_. 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 ladynot the captainfor 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

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

"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."

"Andpardon meit'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 fatiguesa strong

fellow, a brave fellow, a clever fellowin 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

"He only returned yesterday from foreign service! And he volunteers this morning to join the Arctic

"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,

"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

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

"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

"You don't mean it! Are you sure? Did you hear Captain Helding mention his name?"

"Don't ask me! I am as certain of it, as that I am standing here! They are going away together, Lucyaway

to the eternal ice and snow. My foreboding has come true! The two will meetthe man who is to marry me

"Your foreboding has _not_ come true, Clara! The men have not met herethe men are not likely to meet

elsewhere. They are appointed to separate ships. Frank belongs to the _Seamew_, and Wardour to the

_Wanderer_. See! Captain Helding has done. My husband is coming this way. Let me make sure. Let me

"Don't excite yourself, my dear. Look! you are positively alarming Miss Burnham. The new volunteer is a

Two years have passed since the voyagers sailed from their native shores. The enterprise has failedthe

Arctic expedition is lost and icelocked in the Polar wastes. The good ships _Wanderer_ and _Seamew_,

entombed in ice, will never ride the buoyant waters more. Stripped of their lighter timbers, both vessels have

The largest of the two buildings which now shelter the lost men is occupied by the surviving officers and

crew of the _Seamew_. On one side of the principal room are the sleeping berths and the fireplace. 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 mansupposed to be on the watchfast 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 animalsin 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 firelight. No wind whistles outside the lonely dwellingno cry of bird or beast is heard.

Indoors, and outofdoors, the awful silence of the Polar desert reigns, for the moment, undisturbed.

The first sound that broke the silence came from the inner apartment. An officer lifted the canvas screen in

the hut of the _Seamew_ and entered the main room. Cold and privation had badly thinned the ranks. The

commander of the shipCaptain Ebsworthwas 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

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

The pestle and mortar on the cask attracted his attention. He stopped and looked up at the man in the

"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 worldand 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 nightcap. 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

"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 floorgrumbling all

the wayby a rope attached to the rafters at his bed head. Instead of approaching his superior officer and his

saucepan, he hobbled, shivering, to the fireplace, and held his chin as close as he possibly could over the

John Want remained immovably attached to the fireplace, holding something else over the fire. Crayford

"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."

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!"

"Yes, sirthe bones. They'll take a trifle more pounding. I'll do my best with them, sir, for your sake."

"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.

He poured the bones into the mortar, and began to pound themunder protest. At the same moment a sailor

"The captain is worse than ever with his freezing pains, sir. He wants to see you immediately."

Answering in those terms, Crayford returned to the inner hut, followed by the sailor. John Want shook his

"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 speakingtrumpet. 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 pastrycook'swhen I think of

the gallons of turtlesoup that this hand has stirred up in a jolly hot kitchenand 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

A new voice hailed the cook, speaking from one of the bedplaces in the side of the hut. It was the voice of

"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 worsedo you, Mr. Frank? I don't

give _him_," John proceeded, speaking confidentially to himself, "more than six hours to last. He's one of

"I'm not certain, Mr. Frank. Sometimes I think it was natural perversity; sometimes I think it was false pride

at getting over seasickness; sometimes I think it was reading 'Robinson Crusoe,' and books warning of me

Frank laughed. "You're an odd fellow. What do you mean by false pride at getting over seasickness? Did

John Want's dismal face brightened in spite of himself. Frank had recalled to the cook's memory one of the

"That's it, sir!" he said. "If ever a man cured seasickness in a new way yet, I am that manI got over it, Mr.

Frank, by dint of hard eating. I was a passenger on board a packetboat, sir, when first I saw blue water. A

nasty lopp of a sea came on at dinnertime, 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. 'Mockturtle 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 headandshoulders,' 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, staggeringback 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.

'Muttonchop 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

"Nothing that I set the smallest value onwhen 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

"Very attentive and considerate on your part," said Frank. "What is to become of me, if you please, when

"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 soonthere is to be a change at last in our wretched lives here. Do

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 or not," returned Frank, "any risk is better than pining and perishing here. Put me down,

"Volunteers will not be accepted, in this case," said Crayford. "Captain Helding and Captain Ebsworth see

"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

"I want the dice and the box for casting lots. The captains have arrangedmost wisely, as I thinkthat

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

"Frank! Frank! you have a bad habit of letting your tongue run away with you. Don't repeat that stupid

Crayford laid his hand kindly on Frank's shoulder. Of all the officers of the _Seamew_, Crayford's favorite

"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.

"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 himthere 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

_Seamew_ 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

Frank opened his locker. At the same moment the silence of the snowy waste outside was broken by a

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, heavybrowed 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

Crayford advanced to welcome Captain Helding. Frank, remembering the friendly reproof which he had just

received, passed ov er the other officers of the _Wanderer_, and made a special effort to be civil to Crayford's

"Goodmorning, Mr. Wardour," he said. "We may congratulate each other on the chance of leaving this

Frank turned to his brother officers, without making any further advances in the direction of Richard

In the meantime, the hut had become thronged by the ablebodied 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

"Brother officers and men of the _Wanderer_ and _Seamew_, 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 yearsthe 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 regionswithout

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.

The officers (with the exception of Wardour, who stood apart in sullen silence) all agreed, so far.

"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 sickespecially, I am sorry to say, the sick in the _Wanderer_'s hutare 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

"The plan proposed is, that a detachment of the ablebodied 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

Wardour still preserved his sullen silence. Crayford noticed him. standing apart from the rest, and appealed to

Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favor of volunteering by a question which instantly

"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

"So we get back again," said the captain, "to the old questionWho among the ablebodied 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 twelvedouble sixes. All who throw under six, stay; all who throw over six, go. Officers of the

_Wanderer_ and the _Seamew_, 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 _Seamew_, 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.

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 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

"Bah!" growled the Bear. "It's not worth the trouble of getting up for. Somebody else throw for me." He

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

"What did I tell you?" said Wardour. "The chance was yours. You have thriven on my ill luck."

"Don't look at me in that sour way, Richard. I am going to ask you a question about something which

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 halfhour 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 bedridden captain of the _Seamew_. Wardour and Crayford were left together,

Crayford touched his friend on the shoulder to rouse him. Wardour looked up, impatiently, with a frown.

"I wish to speak to you privately; and this is my opportunity. You have disappointed and surprised me

today. Why did you say it was all one to you whether you went or stayed? Why are you the only man

"Can a man always give a reason for what is strange in his manner or his words?" Wardour retorted.

"That's true," he said. "I _will_ try. Do you remember the first night at sea when we sailed from England in

"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

"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 proceededstill 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 doaccepted it, easily, gracefully, unfeelinglyaccepted 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 sakeand 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 lipsthe lips I had kissed at partingtold 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

"The time when I and that man shall meet face to face. I knew it then; I know it nowit was written on my

heart then, it is written on my heart nowwe 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 pestilenceI, though

hundreds are falling round me, I shall live! live for the coming of one day! live for the meeting with one

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 actionhe resented ithe appealed, in defense of

"Look at me!" he cried. "Look how I have lived and thriven, with the heartache 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 bestseasoned 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

"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

The heart that no other voice could touch felt that appeal. The fierce eyes, the hard voice, softened under

"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, Crayfordthat's the true elixir of our life! Work, that stretches the muscles and sets the

blood aglowing. Work, that tires the body and rests the mind. Is there nothing in hand that I can do?

The door opened as he put the question. Batesonappointed to chop Frank's bedplace into

firingappeared punctually with his ax. Wardour, without a word of warning, snatched the ax out of the

"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 subduedfor the time, at least. Crayford took his hand in silence; and then

"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 bedplace 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 BatesonI

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!

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 bedplace. I'll have it down! I would have the whole hut down, if they

A long strip of wood fell to his axlong enough to require cutting in two. He turned it, and stooped over it.

Something caught his eyeletters 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 Aif they looked like anything. He threw down the strip of wood irritably.

"Dn the fellow (whoever he is) who cut this! Why should he carve _that_ name, of all the names in the

He paused, consideringthen determined to go on again with his selfimposed 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

He put down the ax. There were vague misgivings in him which he was not able to realize. The state of his

"More carving," he said to himself. "That's the way these young idlers employ their long hours. F. A.? Those

must be _his_ initialsFrank Aldersley. Who c arved 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,

"C. B.?" he repeated to himself. "His sweet heart's initials, I suppose? Of courseat his agehis

He paused once more. A spasm of inner pain showed the shadow of its mysterious passage, outwardly on his

He waited, with the plank in his hand; repeating the name over and over again, as if it was a question he was

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 halfdemolished berth. "Oh, God! what has come to

me now?" he said to himself, in a whisper. He snatched up the ax, with a strange crysomething between

rage and terror. He triedfiercely, desperately triedto 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

An interval passed; and there came over him another change. He recovered his selfpossession almost as

suddenly as he had lost it. A smilea horrid, deforming, unnatural smilespread 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 selfabandoned to a frenzy of vindictive joy. He had found the man! There, at the end of the

worldthere, at the last fight of the Arctic voyagers against starvation and death, he had found the man!

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

Was itcould it bethe man who had carved the letters on the plank? Yes! Frank Aldersley!

"Still at work!" Crayford exclaimed, looking at the halfdemolished bedplace. "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

Franksearching in his locker for articles of clothing which he might require on the journeylooked round.

He was startled, as Crayford had been startled, by the sudden change in Wardour since they had last seen

"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

"Yes," he said; "I hurt myself with the ax. It's nothing. Never mind. Pain always has a curious effect on me. I

He turned his face toward them again as suddenly as he had turned it away. He advanced a few steps, and

"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."

"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

"Yes. From East Kent." He waited a little once more, and looked hard at Frank. "Do you know that part of the

"I ought to know something about East Kent," Frank answered. "Some dear friends of mine once lived there."

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

"One of the county families?" he resumed. "The Winterbys of Yew Grange, I dare say?"

Desperately as he struggled to maintain it, Wardour's selfcontrol failed him. He started violently. The

clumsilywound handkerchief fell off his hand. Still looking at him attentively, Crayford picked it up.

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."

Crayford advanced and questioned the quartermaster. "What do you want with Captain Helding?" he asked.

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?"

"Clara!" he repeated. "What authorizes you to speak of Miss Burnham in that familiar manner?"

Frank's blood was up. He forgot his promise to Clara to keep their engagement secrethe forgot everything

"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

"Impos sible 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

"Say no more," he interposed. "I was in the wrongI lost my temper. Pray forgive me."

Wardour looked at him with a strange, reluctant interest while he was speaking. Wardour asked an

"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 wasClara 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

The reflection had barely occurred to himFrank's thoughtless invitation to Wardour had just passed his

lipswhen 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

"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

"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

"Wardour has no right to volunteer," he rejoined. "It has been settled, Captain Helding, that chance shall

"And chance _has_ decided it," cried Wardour. "Do you think we are going to cast the dice again, and give an

officer of the _Seamew_ 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.

"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

"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

Wardour had followed Crayford. Wardour roughly interposed before Frank could reply.

Crayford paid no heed to the interruption. He was too earnestly bent on withdrawing Frank from the

"Don't, pray don't, risk hardships which you are unfit to bear!" he went on, entreatingly. "Your place can be

Again Wardour interfered. Again he called out, "Leave him alone!" more roughly than ever. Still deaf and

"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

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

"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

"I am gratefully sensible, Crayford," he began, "of the interest which you take in me"

"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,

Wardour snatched his gun out of the hands of the sailor who was carrying it for him. His dark face became

"Come!" he cried. "Over the snow and over the ice! Come! where no human footsteps have ever trodden, and

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

suspicionwithout 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

hopeliterally, 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 waythey would see that no harm came

The word of command was given; the door was thrown open; the hut emptied rapidly. Over the merciless

white snowunder the merciless black skythe 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

Crayford broke away from the officers near him; and, hurrying forward, seized Frank by both hands.

"God preserve you, Frank! I would give all I have in the world to be with you. Goodby! Goodby!"

Frank waved his handdas hed away the tears that were gathering in his eyesand hurried out. Crayford

Wardour, waiting till the lastWardour, following Frank through the snowdriftstopped, stepped back,

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 icefield 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 ghostlike 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 icecavern 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 skysleeping 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

The iceberg drifts slowly, over the black water, through the ashy light. Minute by minute the lying fire sinks.

Richard Wardour rouses himself from his thoughtslooks at the still white face beneath himand 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

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 fireand stops. Frank is dreaming, and murmuring

in his dream. A woman's name passes his lips. Frank is in England againat the ballwhispering to Clara

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 Clarawho has wrecked the hope and the happiness of his

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

The iceberg drifts slowlyover 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

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 drawingroom 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 whiterobed 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."

"My dear Clara, it is past twelve! Remember what the doctor told you. You ought to have been in bed an hour

"Half an hour, Lucygive 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, Lucysomething 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 bygone 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 whiteher soft brown hair hanging loosely over her

shouldersthere is something weird and ghostlike in the girl, as she moves nearer and nearer to the

window in the full light of the moonpleading for music that shall be worthy of the mystery and the beauty

"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

"No! no! I like it. Playwhile I am out here looking at the sea. It quiets me; it comforts me; it does me

She glides back, ghostlike, 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

themnow, when their last news of the _Wanderer_ and the _Seamew_ is news that is more than two years

oldthey can read of nothing, they can think of nothing, but dangers and discoveries, losses and rescues in

Unwillingly, Mrs. Crayford puts her book aside, and opens the pianoMozart'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

There is no answer. Has Clara wandered away out of hearing of the music that she lovesthe 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 lawnthe 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

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

drawingroom until she calls to them. This done, she returns to the garden, and approaches the mysterious

Dead to the outer world, as if she lay already in her graveinsensible to touch, insensible to sound,

motionless as stone, cold as stoneClara 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 saythis alone is certain, the same interval always passes; the same

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 lipswords spoken in a lost, vacant

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

"Frank! Frank! Frank! Don't drop behinddon't trust Richard Wardour. While you can stand, keep with the

(The farewell warning of Crayford in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep, repeated by Clara in the garden of her

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 driftingover the black water, through the

"Wake, Frank! wake and defend yourself! Richard Wardour knows that I love youRichard Wardour's

vengeance will take your life! Wake, Frankwake! 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

Her glassy eyes suddenly softenthen 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 againthis time with the light of life in themopen, and rest languidly

"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 tonight that the girl's words ring in her ear, with a strange prophetic sound in

them. It is only tonight 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?"

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 womenservants

were laughing over some jest or story that cheered them at their work. It was a lively and pleasant timea

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 dreambelieving in the vision as a supernatural revelationClara'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

They both startedthey 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

todayas it was yesterday; as it would be, if they lived, tomorrowthere was the servant with Lucy's

Would both of them do again today 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,

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

Mrs. Crayford was too agitated to answer in words. She signed impatiently to Clara to go on.

"The following intelligence, from St. Johns, Newfoundland, has reached us for publication. The

whalingvessel _Blythew ood_ 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.

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

Mrs. Crayford dashed the tears from her eyessteadied herselfand 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

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 resignationshe looked,

"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 lifeand 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

"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 onthey 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

"'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

"You don't dispute?" retorted Mrs. Crayford, warmly. "No! you do what is worseyou believe in your own

opinion; you persist in your own conclusionwith the newspaper before you! Do you, or do you not, believe

"In what you saw last night! You, an educated woman, a clever woman, believing in a vision of your own

"Call it a dream if you like, Lucy. I have had other dreams at other timesand I have known them to be

"Yes!" said Mrs. Crayford. "For once in a way they may have been fulfilled, by chanceand 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 thinkif it is only to show

She put her arm round the girl's neck, and kissed her. Clara returned the kiss; Clara answered, sadly and

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 morebut there was the terrible

conviction of Frank's death at Wardour's hands rooted as firmly as ever in her mind! Discouraged and

At the drawingroom 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, selfproclaimed, a prosperous

country doctorsuccessful 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

"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 today, 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 today 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 concernedand 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

"Miss Burnham has grieved and alarmed me," Mrs. Crayford answered. "I was just thinking of sending for

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 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.

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 herand 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, resignedlyhaving first cast a

look at Mrs. Crayford which said plainly, "Stay here with me." Clara bowed her acknowledgments in co ld

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

"I think you told me," he began, "that Miss Burnham has neither father nor mother living?"

"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

worsephysically 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.

"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 herand

"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

"Pardon me if I ask you a question, on my part, before I reply," said the doctor. "Are you fortunate enough to

"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

discovernot by reference to her own distempered fancies and visions, but by reference to actual evidence

and actual factwhether 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 worsteven

assuming that Mr. Aldersley has died in the Arctic seasit 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 rightyou 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

"Good Heavens, doctor! do you mean to tell me that we are to go to sea and meet the Arctic Expedition on its

"I will tell you immediately. I mentioneddidn't I?that I had heard something on my road to this house."

"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 steamvessel, 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 shipsand 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

"Write!" she exclaimed. "I will do better than write. The journey to London is no great matterand my

housekeeper here is to be trusted to take care of Clara in my absence. I will see my father tonight! He shall

make good use of his interest at the Admiraltyyou may rely on that. Oh, my dear doctor, what a prospect it

is! My husband! Clara! What a discovery you have madewhat 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 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 staterooms on board. On the

list of these favored guests of the ship were the names of two ladiesMrs. Crayford and Miss Burnham.

Once more the open seathe 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 boathouse on

the shoreone of the buildings attached to a fishingstation on the coast of the island.

The only person in the boathouse 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

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 boathouse is Clara's veil.

And who is the man si tting on the chest, with the cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea? The man is the

Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor

"Look sharp with your work there, John Want!" says the sailor. "Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to

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

"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 Poleif I had only known it. Another man in

my place might be inclined to say that this Newfoundland boathouse 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 codfish, and perpetual Newfoundland dogs. We had some very nice bears at the

This time the voice is a voice of authoritythe man at the doorway is Lieutenant Crayford himself. John

"I've done it as well as I can, sirbut the damp of this place is beginning to tell upon our very ropes. I say

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

"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 Poleand it's

very damp and sandy here. Do you never miss your bonesoup, 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

acoughing 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 acoughing 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

"You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take that box down to the boat directly. You

The philosopher of the Expedition was not a man to be silenced by referring him to the Garden of Eden.

"I hope I could be cheerful anywhere, sir," said the ship's cook. "But you mark my wordsthere must have

Having entered that unanswerable protest, John Want shouldered the box, and drifted drearily out of the

"Mrs. Crayford is coming this way, sir. She was just behind you when you came in."

"No, sir; Miss Burnham is down on the beach with the passengers. I heard the young lady asking after you,

"Asking after me?" Crayford considered with himself as he repeated the words. He added, in lower and

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 dismissedthat

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 mindexactly reflecting similar suspicions lurking in Crayford's mindwhich 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 ragedand the passengers were not able to leave their

staterooms. But now, when the weather had moderated and the ship had anchorednow, when officers and

passengers alike were on shore, with leisure time at their disposalClara 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

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 itat once honorably and

mercifullywas more than Crayford could tell. He was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife

entered the boathouse. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and anxieties plainly reflected

"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

"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 icebergs. 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

"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 isa 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 saysmislead her for her own sakedispute 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

Clara stopped at the doorway, looking backward and forward distrustfully between the husband and wife.

Entering the boathouse, and approaching Crayford, she took his arm, and led him away a few steps from the

"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 selfpossession at the

"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.

"Verbal instructions only," Steventon replied. "The ship will sail with the floodtide. 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."

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 answeredthen crossed the room and addressed herself to the officer, whose name

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

"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 selfcontrol. 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 thingI 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

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

The question was a dangerous one to answer. Steventon left it to Crayford to reply. Once again he answered

"It doesn't follow, my dear," he said, "that the two men were missing together because their names happen to

"Frank is missing from the party of relief," she said. "Am I to understand that Wardour is missing from the

Both Crayford and Steventon hesitated. Mrs. Crayford cast one indignant look at them, and told the necessary

Quickly as she had spoken, she had still spoken too late. Clara had noticed the momentary hesitation on the

"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

"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

"Have you ever read, in books about the Highlands, of such a thing as 'The Second Sight'?"

"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

"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 acknowledgedand 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.

"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 friendsdon'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

"On the third day out," he said, "Frank's strength failed him. He fell behin d the rest from fatigue."

"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

There he stopped. There the imprudence into which his fondness for Clara had led him showed itself plainly,

It was too late to take refuge in silence. Clara was determined on hearing more.

"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

"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 stoppedconscious, 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 yetreferring to

"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

"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."

"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 hamperClara 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 tablecloth 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

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 boathouse doorway, and she was standing alone on the threshold, looking

out. Approaching her to lead her to the luncheontable, 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

Her lips suddenly closed. She started, and drew back from the doorway, trembling violently. Mrs. Crayford

"Anything there that frightens you, my dear?" she asked. "I can see nothing, except the boats drawn up on the

"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

Mrs. Crayford looked round her, and noticed a second door at the inner end of the boathouse. She spoke to

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 visiblenot 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 mea woman is no

protection; I want to be with you." She looked round again at the boathouse doorway. "Oh!" she whispered,

"I'm cold all overI'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."

"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

luncheontable, with his eyes fixed attentively on the view from the main doorway of the boathouse. 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 boathouse.

In a moment more the figure appeared. A man came slowly into view, and stopped on the threshold of the

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 wellspread table like a hungry dog.

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

The outcast seized on the bread and meat with lean, longnailed 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

"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 thoughtsto exert his

memory. It was not to be done. He gave up the attempt in despair. His language, when he spoke, was as wild

"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 gnawi ng 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.

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

He looked round the boathouse 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."

"I am not afraid," Mrs. Crayford replied. "He frightened me at firsthe interests me now. Let him speak to

He never spoke. He stood, in dead silence, looking long and anxiously at the beautiful Englishwoman.

He answered that question in words. His hoarse, hollow voice softened, little by little, into sorrowful and

"Young," he said; "with a fair, sad facewith kind, tender eyeswith 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,

wanderrestless, sleepless, homelesstill 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!_"

"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

"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.

As the name escaped his lips, Clara appeared at the open yard door, and hurried into the room.

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. Halfway 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

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.

"Now, Clara!" cried Mrs. Crayford, "which of us is right? I who believed in the mercy of God? or you who

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

"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 stoppedhe staggeredhis 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. "Rememberand 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,

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

Crayford tried once more to attract his attentionto win his recognition while there was yet time. "Richard,

"Friend?" he said. "My eyes are dim, friendmy mind is dull. I have lost all memories but the memory of

_her_. Dead thoughtsall dead thoughts but that one! And yet you look at me kindly! Why has your face

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 itaway, away, away forever! 'Love him! love him, Clara, for

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.

Clara and Steventon supported him between them. He fell on his knees at Wardour's s ide; he put his hand on

"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

The end was near. They all saw it now. The men reverently uncovered their heads in the presence of Death.

"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

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, ClaraI want to look my last at _you_. My sister, Clara! Kiss me, sister, kiss me before I

She stooped and kissed his forehead. A faint smile trembled on his lips. It passed away; and stillness

"The loss is ours," he said. "The gain is his. He has won the greatest of all conqueststhe conquest of

himself. And he has died in the moment of victory. Not one of us here but may live to envy _his_ glorious

The distant report of a gun came from the ship in the offing, and signaled the return to England and to home.