wered. "Bear with
my obstinacy," she went on, laying her hand caressingly on Crayford's
shoulder. "Tell me how those two came to be separated from the rest. You
have always been the kindest of friends--don't begin to be cruel to me
now!"

The tone in which she made her entreaty to Crayford went straight to
the sailor's heart. He gave up the hopeless struggle: he let her see a
glimpse of the truth.

"On the third day out," he said, "Frank's strength failed him. He fell
behind the rest from fatigue."

"Surely they waited for him?"

"It was a serious risk to wait for him, my child. Their lives (and the
lives of the men they had left in the huts) depended, in that dreadful
climate, on their pushing on. But Frank was a favorite. They waited half
a day to give Frank the chance of recovering his strength."

There he stopped. There the imprudence into which his fondness for Clara
had led him showed itself plainly, and closed his lips.

It was too late to take refuge in silence. Clara was determined on
hearing more.

She questioned Steventon next.

"Did Frank go on again after the half-day's rest?" she asked.

"He tried to go on--"

"And failed?"

"Yes."

"What did the men do when he failed? Did they turn cowards? Did they
desert Frank?"

She had purposely used language which might irritate Steventon into
answering her plainly. He was a young man--he fell into the snare that
she had set for him.

"Not one among them was a coward, Miss Burnham!" he replied, warmly.
"You are speaking cruelly and unjustly of as brave a set of fellows as
ever lived! The strongest man among them set the example; he volunteered
to stay by Frank, and to bring him on in the track of the exploring
party."

There Steventon stopped--conscious, on his side, that he had said too
much. Would she ask him who this volunteer was? No. She went straight on
to the most embarrassing question that she had put yet--referring to the
volunteer, as if Steventon had already mentioned his name.

"What made Richard Wardour so ready to risk his life for Frank's sake?"
she said to Crayford. "Did he do it out of friendship for Frank? Surely
you can tell me that? Carry your memory back to the days when you were
all living in the huts. Were Frank and Wardour friends at that time? Did
you never hear any angry words pass between them?"

There Mrs. Crayford saw her opportunity of giving her husband a timely
hint.

"My dear child!" she said; "how can you ex