he laid his hand on the lock.

One of the quartermasters of the _Wanderer_ entered the hut.

"Is Captain Helding here, sir?" he asked, addressing himself to Wardour.

Wardour pointed to Crayford.

"The lieutenant will tell you," he said.

Crayford advanced and questioned the quartermaster. "What do you want
with Captain Helding?" he asked.

"I have a report to make, sir. There has been an accident on the ice."

"To one of your men?"

"No, sir. To one of our officers."

Wardour, on the point of going out, paused when the quartermaster made
that reply. For a moment he considered with himself. Then he walked
slowly back to the part of the room in which Frank was standing.
Crayford, directing the quartermaster, pointed to the arched door way in
the side of the hut.

"I am sorry to hear of the accident," he said. "You will find Captain
Helding in that room."

For the second time, with singular persistency, Wardour renewed the
conversation with Frank.

"So you knew the Burnhams?" he said. "What became of Clara when her
father died?"

Frank's face flushed angrily on the instant.

"Clara!" he repeated. "What authorizes you to speak of Miss Burnham in
that familiar manner?"

Wardour seized the opportunity of quarreling with him.

"What right have you to ask?" he retorted, coarsely.

Frank's blood was up. He forgot his promise to Clara to keep their
engagement secret--he forgot everything but the unbridled insolence of
Wardour's language and manner.

"A right which I insist on your respecting," he answered. "The right of
being engaged to marry her."

Crayford's steady eyes were still on the watch, and Wardour felt them
on him. A little more and Crayford might openly interfere. Even Wardour
recognized for once the necessity of controlling his temper, cost him
what it might. He made his apologies, with overstrained politeness, to
Frank.

"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 fe