The Frozen Deep

Steventon politely declined to commit himself to a direct reply.

“I don’t know what I might have done, if I had ever been in the Highlands,” he said. “As it is, I have had no opportunities of giving the subject any serious consideration.”

“I won’t put your credulity to the test,” Clara proceeded. “I won’t ask you to believe anything more extraordinary than that I had a strange dream in England not very long since. My dream showed me what you have just acknowledged—and more than that. How did the two missing men come to be parted from their companions? Were they lost by pure accident, or were they deliberately left behind on the march?”

Crayford made a last vain effort to check her inquiries at the point which they had now reached.

“Neither Steventon nor I were members of the party of relief,” he said. “How are we to answer you?”

“Your brother officers who were members of the party must have told you what happened,” Clara rejoined. “I only ask you and Mr. Steventon to tell me what they told you.”

Mrs. Crayford interposed again, with a practical suggestion this time.

“The luncheon is not unpacked yet,” she said. “Come, Clara! this is our business, and the time is passing.”

“The luncheon can wait a few minutes longer,” Clara answered. “Bear with my obstinacy,” she went on, laying her hand caressingly on Crayford’s shoulder. “Tell me how those two came to be separated from the rest. You have always been the kindest of friends—don’t begin to be cruel to me now!”

The tone in which she made her entreaty to Crayford went straight to the sailor’s heart. He gave up the hopeless struggle: he let her see a glimpse of the truth.

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

“Surely they waited for him?”

“It was a serious risk to wait for him, my child. Their lives (and the lives of the men they had left in the huts) depended, in that dreadful climate, on their pushing on. But Frank was a favorite. They waited half a day to give Frank the chance of recovering his strength.”

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

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

She questioned Steventon next.

“Did Frank go on again after the half-day’s rest?” she asked.

“He tried to go on—”

“And failed?”

“Yes.”

“What did the men do when he failed? Did they turn cowards? Did they desert Frank?”

She had purposely used language which might irritate Steventon into answering her plainly. He was a young man—he fell into the snare that she had set for him.

“Not one among them was a coward, Miss Burnham!” he replied, warmly. “You are speaking cruelly and unjustly of as brave a set of fellows as ever lived! The strongest man among them set the example; he volunteered to stay by Frank, and to bring him on in the track of the exploring party.”

There Steventon stopped—conscious, on his side, that he had said too much. Would she ask him who this volunteer was? No. She went straight on to the most embarrassing question that she had put yet—referring to the volunteer, as if Steventon had already mentioned his name.

“What made Richard Wardour so ready to risk his life for Frank’s sake?” she said to Crayford. “Did he do it out of friendship for Frank? Surely you can tell me that? Carry your memory back to the days when you were all living in the huts. Were Frank and Wardour friends at that time? Did you never hear any angry words pass between them?”

There Mrs. Crayford saw her opportunity of giving her husband a timely hint.

“My dear child!” she said; “how can you expect him to remember that? There must have been plenty of quarrels among the men, all shut up together, and all weary of each other’s company, no doubt.”

“Plenty of quarrels!” Crayford repeated; “and every one of them made up again.”

“And every one of them made up again,” Mrs. Crayford reiterated, in her turn. “There! a plainer answer than that you can’t wish to have. Now are you satisfied? Mr. Steventon, come and lend a hand (as you say at sea) with the hamper—Clara won’t help me. William, don’t stand there doing nothing. This hamper holds a great deal; we must have a division of labor. Your division shall be laying the tablecloth. Don’t handle it in that clumsy way! You unfold a 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 ought to be. Come and do your duty; come and have some lunch!”

She looked up as she spoke. Clara appeared to have yielded at last to the conspiracy to keep her in the dark. She had returned slowly to the boat-house doorway, and she was standing alone on the threshold, looking out. Approaching her to lead her to the luncheon-table, Mrs. Crayford could hear that she was speaking softly to herself. She was repeating the farewell words which Richard Wardour had spoken to her at the ball.

“‘A time may come when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.’ Oh, Frank! Frank! does Richard still live, with your blood on his conscience, and my image in his heart?”

Her lips suddenly closed. She started, and drew back from the doorway, trembling violently. Mrs. Crayford looked out at the quiet seaward view.

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