"I am not afraid," Mrs. Crayford replied. "He frightened me at first--he interests me now. Let him speak to me if he wishes it!"
He never spoke. He stood, in dead silence, looking long and anxiously at the beautiful Englishwoman.
"Well?" said Steventon.
He shook his head sadly, and drew back again with a heavy sigh.
"No!" he said to himself, "that's not her face. No! not found yet."
Mrs. Crayford's interest was strongly excited. She ventured to speak to him.
"Who is it you want to find?" she asked. "Your wife?"
He shook his head again.
"Who, then? What is she like?"
He answered that question in words. His hoarse, hollow voice softened, little by little, into sorrowful and gentle tones.
"Young," he said; "with a fair, sad face--with kind, tender eyes--with a soft, clear voice. Young and loving and merciful. I keep her face in my mind, though I can keep nothing else. I must wander, wander, wander--restless, sleepless, homeless--till I find her! Over the ice and over the snow; tossing on the sea, tramping over the land; awake all night, awake all day; wander, wander, wander, till I find her!"
He waved his hand with a gesture of farewell, and turned wearily to go out.
At the same moment Crayford opened the yard door.
"I think you had better come to Clara," he began, and checked himself, noticing the stranger. "Who is that?"
The shipwrecked man, hearing another voice in the room, looked round slowly over his shoulder. Struck by his appearance, Crayford advanced a little nearer to him. Mrs. Crayford spoke to her husband as he passed her.
"It's only a poor, mad creature, William," she whispered--"shipwrecked and starving."
"Mad?" Crayford repeated, approaching nearer and nearer to the man. "Am I in my right senses?" He suddenly sprang on the outcast, and seized him by the throat. "Richard Wardour!" he cried, in a voice of fury. "Alive!--alive, to answer for Frank!"
The man struggled. Crayford held him.
"Where is Frank?" he said. "You villain, where is Frank?"
The man resisted no longer. He repeated vacantly,
"Villain? and where is Frank?"
As the name escaped his lips, Clara appeared at the open yard door, and hurried into the room.
"I heard Richard's name!" she said. "I heard Frank's name! What does it mean?"
At the sound of her voice the outcast renewed the struggle to free himself, with a sudden frenzy of strength which Crayford was not able to resist. He broke away before the sailors could come to their officer's assistance. Half-way down the length of the room he and Clara met one another face to face. A new light sparkled in the poor wretch's eyes; a cry of recognition burst from his lips. He flung one hand up wildly in the air. "Found!" he shouted, and rushed out to the beach before any of the men present could stop him.
Mrs. Crayford put her arms round Clara and held her up. She had not made a movement: she had not spoken a word. The sight of Wardour's face had petrified her.
The minutes passed, and there rose a sudden burst of cheering from the sailors on the beach, near the spot where the fishermen's boats were drawn up. Every man left his work. Every man waved his cap in the air. The passengers, near at hand, caught the infection of enthusiasm, and joined the crew. A moment more, and Richard Wardour appeared again in the doorway, carrying a man in his arms. He staggered, breathless with the effort that he was making, to the place where Clara stood, held up in Mrs. Crayford's arms.
"Saved, Clara!" he cried. "Saved for you!"
He released the man, and placed him in Clara's arms.
Frank! foot-sore and weary--but living--saved; saved for her!
"Now, Clara!" cried Mrs. Crayford, "which of us is right? I who believed in the mercy of God? or you who believed in a dream?"
She never answered; she clung to Frank in speechless ecstasy. She never even looked at the man who had preserved him, in the first absorbing joy of seeing Frank alive. Step by step, slower and slower, Richard Wardour drew back, and left them by themselves.
"I may rest now," he said, faintly. "I may sleep at last. The task is done. The struggle is over."
His last reserves of strength had been given to Frank. He stopped--he staggered--his hands waved feebly in search of support. But for one faithful friend he would have fallen. Crayford caught him. Crayford laid his old comrade gently on some sails strewn in a corner, and pillowed Wardour's weary head on his own bosom. The tears streamed over his face. "Richard! dear Richard!" he said. "Remember--and forgive me."
Richard neither heeded nor heard him. His dim eyes still looked across the room at Clara and Frank.
"I have made her happy!" he murmured. "I may lay down my weary head now on the mother earth that hushes all her children to rest at last. Sink, heart! sink, sink to rest! Oh, look at them!" he said to Crayford, with a burst of grief. "They have forgotten me already."
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 s ide; he put his hand on Wardour's bosom.