Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/296

282 safe, that was certain. They could travel easily to the ship, which was large.

"What about Latham?" McNeal was asking. And as Margaret looked at Eric he gazed at her and still for an instant was silent.

"Then where's Latham?" McNeal insisted. "Has he gone on to the ship?"

"No," Eric shook his head. "No."

The men from the Kadiack now were coming up, and as Margaret saw them and heard their voices the realisation that at last she and all the rest were safe came over her for the first time. With the sense of safety came also realisation of what rescue and return home would require of her. She knew that until this moment she had held that always far before her, and during the last weeks it had seemed an outcome no longer to be feared, so unlikely had it appeared that they could return to where Latham could claim her. But now that possibility again confronted her; and for some hours Eric must have been realising it. That was what took from the triumph of his return with his news of their rescue; that kept him dumb now as McNeal reminded him of