Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/111

Rh must tell her whether her lover might yet be alive. Would this land by its silence say that Eric Hedon and his companion had been lost long before and lay with their dogs and sledge at the bottom of the Arctic sea? Or might it tell, instead, that they had gained that desolate place only to die there? For a moment, as she looked at the black barrens ahead, fear of what might be found seized her. Her blue eyes dimmed, her lips trembled, her hands unclenched. Then quickly she banished her dread and her doubt and turned about, hopeful, confident again and smiling. Latham had come up beside her and stood looking from her to the beach.

Geoff watched them, understanding but vaguely the bargain between them. Latham, he knew, was paying for the expedition to prove that Hedon was dead; and up to the time that they went aboard the Viborg Geoff had looked upon the proof of Hedon's death as the best outcome for his sister. He had been a boy away at school during most of the time that Hedon had been in Chicago. Hedon had been to him, therefore, only a vague, stubborn