"What do you mean?"
"How can I tell you, Eric?"
"They mean"—he and she both had forgotten what the surgeon had warned them; he drew himsef up now straight and faced her in his direct demand, the blood running hot to flush his face and a ruddy spot welling through the cloths of his bandage—"they mean he has some claim on you?"
Then she told him, beginning with the report of McNeal and Koehler and the others who came back from the Aurora that he must be dead.
"Yes!" he nodded to her. "I knew that, of course. At Mason Land I realised that they would tell you that I was dead. That's why I went over the ice in June—after poor Thomas was dead—and didn't wait till the freeze again. Margaret, I had to try to get to you."
"And every one was sure you were dead—every one, every one, Eric," she went on. "They all said I must forget you; I must give you up; I must marry him. My father and mother had wanted me to marry him, you know, and so did every one else. They said
