“But you’ve heard it before.”
“Hildegarde—?” The faintest motion of the wild head making “No.”
“Yes, yes.” She was on her knees by the bed. “My father was your friend. My father is Nathaniel Mar.”
He said nothing for a moment. She thought he was trying to coördinate the memories her words recalled. But when he spoke it was to say, “No one must know but Bella—only Bella in all the world.”
“Only Bella,” said the girl, and rose upright. But through her tears she saw that his lips still moved.
“Will you—” he whispered. She bent down again to catch the words. “Will you stand at the door—till the boat is beached?”
Hoping, with a catch at the heart, that old association dimly stirred by the name Mar had brought him some warmth of her presence in this chill hour, she tried to find a voice to ask why he wanted her to wait those few poor minutes at the door. But she had no need to put the question. His eyes made answer, trying to follow Ky, as the dog left the threshold and went with her slow, halting gait, aimless, half across the little strip of tundra to the sea.
“Don’t say—anything to me. And don’t”—the wild face twitched with pain—“don’t look at me. Just—stand there, with Ky—till the boat’s ready. And when you go—don’t speak.” Again the dimming eyes sought on the tundra for that vague shadow that was his fellow-explorer and his friend. “I shall watch you, Ky—till the whaler—takes you—South.”
As Hildegarde, bending lower, tried to form speech with her quivering lips, “No,” he whispered. “You’ve done—all—you—can. All, but this last thing. I’d like—to see her as long as ever—But don’t speak, and—don’t—look—back.”