“The Sea-mew’s boats are waiting,” he said.  “I must go, darling.  How pale you are looking, Clara!  Are you ill?”

She never answered.  She questioned him with wild eyes and trembling lips.

“Has anything happened to you, Frank? anything out of the common?”

Frank laughed at the strange question.

“Anything out of the common?” he repeated.  “Nothing that I know of, except sailing for the Arctic seas.  That’s out of the common, I suppose—­isn’t it?”

“Has anybody spoken to you since last night?  Has any stranger followed you in the street?”

Frank turned in blank amazement to Mrs. Crayford.

“What on earth does she mean?”

Mrs. Crayford’s lively invention supplied her with an answer on the spur of the moment.

“Do you believe in dreams, Frank?  Of course you don’t!  Clara has been dreaming about you; and Clara is foolish enough to believe in dreams.  That’s all—­it’s not worth talking about.  Hark! they are calling you.  Say good-by, or you will be too late for the boat.”

Frank took Clara’s hand.  Long afterward—­in the dark Arctic days, in the dreary Arctic nights—­he remembered how coldly and how passively that hand lay in his.

“Courage, Clara!” he said, gayly.  “A sailor’s sweetheart must accustom herself to partings.  The time will soon pass.  Good-by, my darling!  Good-by, my wife!”

He kissed the cold hand; he looked his last—­for many a long year, perhaps!—­at the pale and beautiful face.  “How she loves me!” he thought.  “How the parting distresses her!” He still held her hand; he would have lingered longer, if Mrs. Crayford had not wisely waived all ceremony and pushed him away.

The two ladies followed him at a safe distance through the crowd, and saw him step into the boat.  The oars struck the water; Frank waved his cap to Clara.  In a moment more a vessel at anchor hid the boat from view.  They had seen the last of him on his way to the Frozen Deep!

“No Richard Wardour in the boat,” said Mrs. Crayford.  “No Richard Wardour on the shore.  Let this be a lesson to you, my dear.  Never be foolish enough to believe in presentiments again.”

Clara’s eyes still wandered suspiciously to and fro among the crowd.

“Are you not satisfied yet?” asked Mrs. Crayford.

“No,” Clara answered, “I am not satisfied yet.”

“What! still looking for him?  This is really too absurd.  Here is my husband coming.  I shall tell him to call a cab, and send you home.”

Clara drew back a few steps.

“I won’t be in the way, Lucy, while you are taking leave of your good husband,” she said.  “I will wait here.”

“Wait here!  What for?”

“For something which I may yet see; or for something which I may still hear.”

“Richard Wardour?”

“Richard Wardour.”

Mrs. Crayford turned to her husband without another word.  Clara’s infatuation was beyond the reach of remonstrance.