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Page 41
"Have you seen anything of Clara?" he asked. "Is she still on the
beach?"
"She is following me to this place," Mrs. Crayford replied. "I
have been speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute
as ever to insist on your telling her of the circumstances under
which Frank is missing. As things are, you have no alternative
but to answer her."
"Help me to answer her, Lucy. Tell me, before she comes in, how
this dreadful suspicion first took possession of her. All she
could possibly have known when we left England was that the two
men were appointed to separate ships. What could have led her to
suspect that they had come together?"
"She was firmly persuaded, William, that they _would_ come
together when the Expedition left England. And she had read in
books of Arctic travel, of men left behind by their comrades on
the march, and of men adrift on ice-bergs. With her mind full of
these images and forebodings, she saw Frank and Wardour (or
dreamed of them) in one of her attacks of trance. I was by her
side; I heard what she said at the time. She warned Frank that
Wardour had discovered the truth. She called out to him, 'While
you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!'"
"Good God!" cried Crayford; "I warned him myself, almost in those
very words, the last time I saw him!"
"Don't acknowledge it, William! Keep her in ignorance of what you
have just told me. She will not take it for what it is--a
startling coincidence, and nothing more. She will accept it as
positive confirmation of the faith, the miserable superstitious
faith, that is in her. So long as you don't actually know that
Frank is dead, and that he has died by Wardour's hand, deny what
she says--mislead her for her own sake--dispute all her
conclusions as I dispute them. Help me to raise her to the better
and nobler belief in the mercy of God!" She stopped, and looked
round nervously at the doorway. "Hush!" she whispered. "Do as I
have told you. Clara is here."
Chapter 17.
Clara stopped at the doorway, looking backward and forward
distrustfully between the husband and wife. Entering the
boat-house, and approaching Crayford, she took his arm, and led
him away a few steps from the place in which Mrs. Crayford was
standing.
"There is no storm now, and there are no duties to be done on
board the ship," she said, with the faint, sad smile which it
wrung Crayford's heart to see. "You are Lucy's husband, and you
have an interest in me for Lucy's sake. Don't shrink on that
account from giving me pain: I can bear pain. Friend and brother!
will you believe that I have courage enough to hear the worst?
Will you promise not to deceive me about Frank?"
The gentle resignation in her voice, the sad pleading in her
look, shook Crayford's self-possession at the outset. He answered
her in the worst possible manner; he answered evasively.
"My dear Clara," he said, "what have I done that you should
suspect me of deceiving you?"
She looked him searchingly in the face, then glanced with renewed
distrust at Mrs. Crayford. There was a moment of silence. Before
any of the three could speak again, they were interrupted by the
appearance of one of Crayford's brother officers, followed by two
sailors carrying a hamper between them. Crayford instantly
dropped Clara's arm, and seized the welcome opportunity of
speaking of other things.
"Any instructions from the ship, Steventon?" he asked,
approaching the officer.
"Verbal instructions only," Steventon replied. "The ship will
sail with the flood-tide. We shall fire a gun to collect the
people, and send another boat ashore. In the meantime here are
some refreshments for the passengers. The ship is in a state of
confusion; the ladies will eat their luncheon more comfortably
here."
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