“Nothing?”
“Nothing, but how they’d buried John Galbraith. Oh, Bella!” Hildegarde’s horror-struck eyes besought forgiveness.
But Bella spoke with a strange steadiness. “Louis didn’t say any of the things you wanted him to say?”
Hildegarde shook her head. “We waited, father and I. We lived on board first one and then another steamer. And two ships went away without us. Father was so good, so good. He moved heaven and earth to get another message to Polaris to say that we were waiting. And Louis never came. I have hurt him so much he can’t bear even to see me.” They sat in the silence, crying.
“Bella.”
“Yes.”
“You and I will never let each other go.”
“No,” said Bella.
“You and I alone together till the end.”