"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Crayford," said Steventon.

"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 stre