Seaforth looked at his companion as he spoke, and the girl met his gaze directly. There was no room for anything but frankness at such a time.
"Ah," she said simply. "I am glad I came."
Seaforth's eyes seemed to grow a little misty, and Alice Deringham, who suddenly looked aside, wondered whether it was only the effect of weariness. Whatever he felt, he, however, quietly poured something into a cup and handed it to her. "But you must eat," he said.
Hungry and cold as she had been, the girl could eat but little, though the steaming liquid in the cup put a little life into her, and presently she rose up and shook off the coarse shawl which somebody had wrapped about her shoulders.
"I am ready now," she said.
Seaforth glanced at her a moment with open admiration. The girl to hide her weariness stood very straight, and Alice Deringham knew how to hold herself. The pallor in her face intensified the little glow in her eyes and the ruddy gleam of her lustrous hair under the lamplight. She was, it seemed to him, almost splendid in her statuesque symmetry, but there was also a subtle change in her, and a sudden sense of confusion came upon him. He remembered his previous distrust of her, and that it was to save his comrade she had come.
"No," he said quietly; "you must rest and sleep before you go to him."
Alice Deringham smiled a little, but there was a vibration in her voice that stirred the man. "Do you think I could?"
This time there was no mistaking the faint haziness in Seaforth's eyes. "God bless you," he said simply. "He is my friend—and I think you are the only one who can do anything for him."
Alice Deringham had in her a trace of greatness which was instinctive, and not the result of the training that had taught her serenity. So, though the man had not hidden his meaning, she made no protest nor asked any question.