It was true! The interest was all with the two lovers. Frank was young and handsome and popular. Officers, passengers, and sailors, they all crowded round Frank. They all forgot the martyred man who had saved him—the man who was dying in Crayford’s arms.
Crayford tried once more to attract his attention—to win his recognition while there was yet time. “Richard, speak to me! Speak to your old friend!”
He look round; he vacantly repeated Crayford’s last word.
“Friend?” he said. “My eyes are dim, friend—my mind is dull. I have lost all memories but the memory of her. Dead thoughts—all dead thoughts but that one! And yet you look at me kindly! Why has your face gone down with the wreck of all the rest?”
He paused; his face changed; his thoughts drifted back from present to past; he looked at Crayford vacantly, lost in the terrible remembrances that were rising in him, as the shadows rise with the coming night.
“Hark ye, friend,” he whispered. “Never let Frank know it. There was a time when the fiend within me hungered for his life. I had my hands on the boat. I heard the voice of the Tempter speaking to me: Launch it, and leave him to die! I waited with my hands on the boat, and my eyes on the place where he slept. ‘Leave him! leave him!’ the voice whispered. ‘Love him!’ the lad’s voice answered, moaning and murmuring in his sleep. ‘Love him, Clara, for helping me!’ I heard the morning wind come up in the silence over the great deep. Far and near, I heard the groaning of the floating ice; floating, floating to the clear water and the balmy air. And the wicked Voice floated away with it—away, away, away forever! ‘Love him! love him, Clara, for helping me!’ No wind could float that away! ‘Love him, Clara—‘”
His voice sank into silence; his head dropped on Crayford’s breast. Frank saw it. Frank struggled up on his bleeding feet and parted the friendly throng round him. Frank had not forgotten the man who had saved him.
“Let me go to him!” he cried. “I must and will go to him! Clara, come with me.”
Clara and Steventon supported him between them. He fell on his knees at Wardour’s side; he put his hand on Wardour’s bosom.
“Richard!”