But of course they’d only think she was mad. Oh, why had she come! With a tension as of tears, crowding, straining the muscles of her throat, she turned away to face again the wind-driven sleet of the deck. She dragged her steps to the dirty companionway. From the smoking-room above came the giant’s great laugh, punctuating some one’s story, and what so melancholy to certain moods as the sound of distant merriment! It becomes for us the symbol of all that greater gladness out of our reach, attainable to happier men. No light as yet, except in the saloon behind her. All the rest of the ship shrouded in the early-gathering shadows of a stormy evening. A passion of loneliness swept over her. As her foot touched the first step, some one came close behind.
“Is that you?” said a voice she did not recognize. A touch, a whisky breath blowing foul in her face, and without lifting her eyes or even uttering a sound she fled up the stair, meaning to make straight for Mrs. Blumpitty’s rain-soaked pallet. Half-way up she saw in the gloom above her the blaze of a match, and there was the Arctic Cap, his back turned to her, holding up the lighted match to read the run on the notice board. As Hildegarde’s eyes fell in that vivid instant on the square shoulders, something in outline or attitude set her heart to beating so wildly, that, still flying on, she stumbled. With a little cry she put out a hand and felt herself steadied as the match fell to darkness. In a turmoil of wonder and wild hope her cheek had brushed the coat sleeve one lightning instant before she recovered firm footing and stood erect with apology on her lips.
The ship’s doctor and the purser came hurriedly out of the smoking-room. But the Arctic Cap was turned away when the sudden light streamed out. A banging door, hurrying steps, and Hildegarde was peering in the dark after an indistinguishable face, hoping things she knew both impossible and mad, only to find herself standing there alone, with thumping pulses.
CHAPTER XIX
The Arctic Cap had vanished from the ship. Every one else able to be afoot appeared on deck the next morning in the clear and strangely milder weather. Even the purser was abroad, passing by with averted eye, receiving haughtily the homage of the fair who hastened to inquire after his health, thereby further emphasizing Miss Mar’s neglect. She sat watchful but silent in the sunshine, drinking in the air that seemed to bring a blessing with it from some golden land that yesterday had been far off, and that to-day was very near. Mrs. Blumpitty had resumed the perpendicular and her most cheerful air. All the Blumpitty “outfit” in the best of spirits. The business woman to the company was exhibiting her vaunted competency in “dealing with men” and “affairs” by industrious prosecution of her flirtation with the oldest dentist. Shifting groups of lawyers, “judges,” senators, were cheerfully objurgating the mining laws. The lean bean-feaster, who between meals was for ever chewing gum, paused in his nervous pacing of the deck, though not in his labor of mastication, to assure ex-Governor Reinhart that he was “dead wrong.” This seemed, on the face of it, improbable. But Reinhart condescended to remind him, “Nome isn’t like any other camp. Wait till you see the state of things there.”
“Have.”