For a moment, a snarling expression strove to master the trader's face. The missionary poured oil.
"I'm sure Mr. Karmack meant nothing wrong. He's just a bit upset by all these happenings."
"Upset? Dear eyes, yes—I'll say I'm upset." The factor made a quick grasp for peace, for the sergeant looked dangerous. "All I meant was that I could understand a wife going to such an effort to join a husband, but not a sister."
"Any reason to believe Oliver O'Malley had a wife?" Seymour remained stern.
"None in the world. But a sister—— To make a trip like that, she must have had some very pressing reason." Again his eyes questioned the parson.
"If there existed any other than sisterly affection," said Morrow evenly, "she did not express it to me." His manner was so final as to make further questioning discourteous.
Clumsily as Karmack had used his probe, he had but echoed a query that had been in Seymour's mind from his first realization of Moira's superlative comeliness. The sergeant had meant to ask about this when he and Morrow were alone, and he would have put his question without giving offense.
Why had one who deserved to be the honored toast of the Dominion rushed into the Arctic wilds, evidently unasked, certainly unexpected, at a time of year when it would be next to impossible to send her back?
Was there any connection between her coming and what had occurred so recently in the Eskimo hut? Had she brought a warning of some sort to this beloved brother and been lulled into thinking she might delay for a missionary escort and still be in time to serve and save him?
Those rapid-fire speculations, unvoiced, seemed to advise only negative answers. Yet why had she come?