The Frozen Deep

eat of the room —”“That won’t do, either. Say that you choose to keep your own secrets, and I shall understand what you mean.”Clara’s s

have my faults of temper. I begin to like Richard already. Go on.”“The days went by, Lucy, and the weeks went by. We were thrown very much together. I began, little by little, to have some suspicion of the truth.”“And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course?”“No. He was not — unhappily for me — he was not that sort of man. He never spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I who saw it. I couldn’t help seeing it. I did all I could to show that I was willing to be a sister to him, and that I could never be anything else. He did not understand me, or he would not, I can’t say which.”“‘Would not,’ is the most likely, my dear. Go on.”“It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough bashfulness about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke out. He seemed to treat me as if our future lives had been provided for while we were children. What could I do, Lucy?”“Do? You could have asked your father to end the difficulty for you.”“Impossible! You forget what I have just told you. My father was suffering at that time under the illness which afterward caused his death. He was quite unfit to interfere.”“Was there no one else who could help you?”“No one.”“No lady in whom you could confide?”“I had acquaintances among the ladies in the neighborhood. I had no friends.”“What did you do, then?”“Nothing. I hesitated; I put off coming to an explanation with him, unfortunately, until it was too late.”“What do you mean by too late?”“You shall hear. I ought to have told you that Richard Wardour is in the navy —”“Indeed! I am more interested in him than ever. Well?”“One spring day Richard came to our house to take leave of us before he joined his ship. I thought he was gone, and I went into the next room. It was my own sitting-room, and it opened on to the garden.”—“Yes?”“Richard must have been watching me. He suddenly appeared in the garden. Without waiting for me to invite him, he walked into the room. I was a little startled as well as surprised, but I managed to hide it. I said, ‘What is it, Mr. Wardour?’ He stepped close up to me; he said, in his quick, rough way: ‘Clara! I am going to the African coast. If I live, I shall come back promoted; and we both know what will happen then.’ He kissed me. I was half frightened, half angry. Before I could compose myself to say a word, he was out in the garden again — he was gone! I ought to have spoken, I know. It was not honorable, not kind toward him. You can’t reproach me for my want of courage and frankness more bitterly than I reproach myself!”“My dear child, I don’t reproach you. I only think you might have written to him.”“I did write.”“Plainly?”“Yes. I told him in so many words that he was deceiving himself, and that I could never marry him.”“Plain enough, in all conscience! Having said that, surely you are not to blame. What are you fretting about now?”“Suppose my letter has never reached him?”“Why should you suppose anything of the sort?”“What I wrote required an answer, Lucy —asked for an answer. The answer has never come. What is the plain conclusion? My letter has never reached him. And the Atalanta is expected back! Richard Wardour is returning to England — Richard Wardour will claim me as his wife! You wondered just now if I really meant what I said. Do you doubt it still?”Mrs. Cra