“Impossible to dispute such a right as yours,” he said. “Perhaps you will excuse me when you know that I am one of Miss Burnham’s old friends. My father and her father were neighbors. We have always met like brother and sister—”
Frank generously stopped the apology there.
“Say no more,” he interposed. “I was in the wrong—I lost my temper. Pray forgive me.”
Wardour looked at him with a strange, reluctant interest while he was speaking. Wardour asked an extraordinary question when he had done.
“Is she very fond of you?”
Frank burst out laughing.
“My dear fellow,” he said, “come to our wedding, and judge for yourself.”
“Come to your wedding?” As he repeated the words Wardour stole one glance at Frank which Frank (employed in buckling his knapsack) failed to see. Crayford noticed it, and Crayford’s blood ran cold. Comparing the words which Wardour had spoken to him while they were alone together with the words that had just passed in his presence, he could draw but one conclusion. The woman whom Wardour had loved and lost was—Clara Burnham. The man who had robbed him of her was Frank Aldersley. And Wardour had discovered it in the interval since they had last met. “Thank God!” thought Crayford, “the dice have parted them! Frank goes with the expedition, and Wardour stays behind with me.”
The reflection had barely occurred to him—Frank’s thoughtless invitation to Wardour had just passed his lips—when the canvas screen over the doorway was drawn aside. Captain Helding and the officers who were to leave with the exploring party returned to the main room on their way out. Seeing Crayford, Captain Helding stopped to speak to him.
“I have a casualty to report,” said the captain, “which diminishes our numbers by one. My second lieutenant, who was to have joined the exploring party, has had a fall on the ice. Judging by what the quartermaster tells me, I am afraid the poor fellow has broken his leg.”