More anxious than he dared to admit, even to himself, the sergeant waited, his fingers crunching the fur of his cap as he paced the living room. Even before Morrow spoke on returning, he knew the beauty's thumbs were down. The missionary's expression was too sympathetic for any answer.
"Miss O'Malley asks that you'll excuse her, sergeant," was his formal report.
"Is she ill?"
"Not physically, I'm afraid."
Seymour was too dazed for his pride to come into action. To be turned away without a word didn't seem fair. What's more, it wasn't at all like Moira O'Malley. Surely he had the right to know his fault—his crime?
"Thunderin' icebergs, Luke Morrow! Tell me what I've done to be treated like this?" he demanded.
"I'm sure I can't imagine, Russell."
"Does Madame Emma know?"
The sky-pilot shook his head. "Moira has not mentioned your name to either of us since the last evening you spent here." He hesitated a moment. "She does know at last that her brother was murdered—that such was the accident of the Arctic we reported to her."
"Then she thinks I'm responsible for trying to soften that ordeal?" Even as he asked, however, he felt certain that there must be something more of a misunderstanding than that.