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Page 28
Frank's face flushed angrily on the instant.
"Clara!" he repeated. "What authorizes you to speak of Miss
Burnham in that familiar manner?"
Wardour seized the opportunity of quarreling with him.
"What right have you to ask?" he retorted, coarsely.
Frank's blood was up. He forgot his promise to Clara to keep
their engagement secret--he forgot everything but the unbridled
insolence of Wardour's language and manner.
"A right which I insist on your respecting," he answered. "The
right of being engaged to marry her."
Crayford's steady eyes were still on the watch, and Wardour felt
them on him. A little more and Crayford might openly interfere.
Even Wardour recognized for once the necessity of controlling his
temper, cost him what it might. He made his apologies, with
overstrained politeness, to Frank.
"Impossible to dispute such a right as yours," he said. "Perhaps
you will excuse me when you know that I am one of Miss Burnham's
old friends. My father and her father were neighbors. We have
always met like brother and sister--"
Frank generously stopped the apology there.
"Say no more," he interposed. "I was in the wrong--I lost my
temper. Pray forgive me."
Wardour looked at him with a strange, reluctant interest while he
was speaking. Wardour asked an extraordinary question when he had
done.
"Is she very fond of you?"
Frank burst out laughing.
"My dear fellow," he said, "come to our wedding, and judge for
yourself."
"Come to your wedding?" As he repeated the words Wardour stole
one glance at Frank which Frank (employed in buckling his
knapsack) failed to see. Crayford noticed it, and Crayford's
blood ran cold. Comparing the words which Wardour had spoken to
him while they were alone together with the words that had just
passed in his presence, he could draw but one conclusion. The
woman whom Wardour had loved and lost was--Clara Burnham. The man
who had robbed him of her was Frank Aldersley. And Wardour had
discovered it in the interval since they had last met. "Thank
God!" thought Crayford, "the dice have parted them! Frank goes
with the expedition, and Wardour stays behind with me."
The reflection had barely occurred to him--Frank's thoughtless
invitation to Wardour had just passed his lips--when the canvas
screen over the doorway was drawn aside. Captain Helding and the
officers who were to leave with the exploring party returned to
the main room on their way out. Seeing Crayford, Captain Helding
stopped to speak to him.
"I have a casualty to report," said the captain, "which
diminishes our numbers by one. My second lieutenant, who was to
have joined the exploring party, has had a fall on the ice.
Judging by what the quartermaster tells me, I am afraid the poor
fellow has broken his leg."
"I will supply his place," cried a voice at the other end of the
hut.
Everybody looked round. The man who had spoken was Richard
Wardour.
Crayford instantly interfered--so vehemently as to astonish all
who knew him.
"No!" he said. "Not you, Richard! not you!"
"Why not?" Wardour asked, sternly.
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