noticed the momentary hesitation on the part of the two officers. She
turned to Steventon.

"I trust to your honor," she said, quietly. "Am I right, or wrong, in
believing that Mrs. Crayford is mistaken?"

She had addressed herself to the right man of the two. Steventon had
no wife present to exercise authority over him. Steventon, put on his
honor, and fairly forced to say something, owned the truth. Wardour had
replaced an officer whom accident had disabled from accompanying the
party of relief, and Wardour and Frank were missing together.

Clara looked at Mrs. Crayford.

"You hear?" she said. "It is you who are mistaken, not I. What you
call 'Accident,' what I call 'Fate,' brought Richard Wardour and Frank
together as members of the same Expedition, after all." Without waiting
for a reply, she again turned to Steventon, and surprised him by
changing the painful subject of the conversation of her own accord.

"Have you been in the Highlands of Scotland?" she asked.

"I have never been in the Highlands," the lieutenant replied.

"Have you ever read, in books about the Highlands, of such a thing as
'The Second Sight'?"

"Yes."

"Do you believe in the Second Sight?"

Steventon politely declined to commit himself to a direct reply.

"I don't know what I might have done, if I had ever been in the
Highlands," he said. "As it is, I have had no opportunities of giving
the subject any serious consideration."

"I won't put your credulity to the test," Clara proceeded. "I won't ask
you to believe anything more extraordinary than that I had a strange
dream in England not very long since. My dream showed me what you have
just acknowledged--and more than that. How did the two missing men come
to be parted from their companions? Were they lost by pure accident, or
were they deliberately left behind on the march?"

Crayford made a last vain effort to check her inquiries at the point
which they had now reached.

"Neither Steventon nor I were members of the party of relief," he said.
"How are we to answer you?"

"Your brother officers who _were_ members of the party must have told
you what happened," Clara rejoined. "I only ask you and Mr. Steventon to
tell me what they told you."

Mrs. Crayford interposed again, with a practical suggestion this time.

"The luncheon is not unpacked yet," she said. "Come, Clara! this is our
business, and the time is passing."

"The luncheon can wait a few minutes longer," Clara ans