Part 50 (1/2)

”I was quite wrong, Cynthia. He was in the best of spirits. He was elated. The look of strain had gone if it was ever there. I have been mistaken. I am happy to admit it.”

Cynthia relaxed from her frigidity. But her satisfaction was a poor one and had little life in it. She had merely tricked Mr. Benoliel into the belief that his insight had been at fault. For in truth, as she knew very well, it had never been more shrewd. What had led Mr.

Benoliel into error was his ignorance of the letter with the ”Rexland”

stamp which had arrived at the white house by the morning's post.

Hemming's failure was a kind of reprieve for Harry Rames. In a sudden revulsion he had been lifted out of his discouragement. His exultation had remained with him all that day. Cynthia had counted upon it when she had sent Benoliel to his study.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE CONVICT AT THE OAR

A long account of Hemming's expedition, sent by a New Zealand correspondent, appeared in one of the morning papers the next day.

Hemming had travelled a couple of hundred miles further south than Harry Rames. Then he had been compelled to return. But it was Harry Rames who had made it possible for him to get so far. For he used Rames's depots of provisions and was able to save his own for the stretch of new ice-covered country.

Harry lighted upon the account unexpectedly when he opened his newspaper at the breakfast table, but the moment he saw the head-line he folded the sheets quickly again and pushed the paper away from him.

He shrank from reading it, hardly daring to trust himself, and he began to talk over with Cynthia the names of suitable candidates for the Hickleton Division.

”The Whips, of course, will have a man ready who will be pledged to swallow the whole of the Government policy, land bill and all. We must be beforehand with them. What do you say to young Burrell, Cynthia?”

”Sir James Burrell's son?”

”Yes. His father is anxious that he should do something,” said Harry with a laugh.

”But isn't he rather young and rather insignificant?” asked Cynthia.

”Youth's a good quality in the House of Commons. The older men become suspicious of change and want life stereotyped as it is. And young Burrell isn't without brains. I don't say that he's a flyer, but then, like the Government, I prefer docility to brains in my followers. I think that I will run round to Sir James when we go back to town on Monday.”

But though Harry Rames neglected his newspaper at the breakfast table, he came back for it at eleven in the morning. He could keep the drawer in his bureau locked upon his charts, but he could not quench his fever to read the details of Hemming's expedition. For an hour he tried to occupy himself with the business of Cynthia's estate, and then he gave up the attempt. When and how Hemming failed, how far he had travelled with his sledges, what new lessons were to be learnt from his experience--here were questions which he could not silence.

He got the paper and read the account through. ”The dogs gave out,” he said to Cynthia. ”The dogs are the trouble. You can't carry enough food for them and for the sledging-party as well. Of course, it's bad luck on Hemming. But I doubt if he followed the highest traditions of British exploration.”

”Why?” asked Cynthia.

”He should have chosen a different base, converged upon the Pole from a different angle, and covered ground altogether new. Then, whether he failed or not, he would have brought back a hundred new facts of interest to the scientist and the geographer. As it is he adds very little I should think to our knowledge.”

Cynthia was silent for awhile after he had finished. Then she said in a low voice, bending over some embroidery at which she was working:

”And if you were to go back, Harry, where would you make your base?”

”I?”

Harry Rames sprang eagerly up.

”Oh, I should search for a harbor a long way to the east of my old one. At least,” and he caught himself up, ”I think that is what I should do. I am speaking at random, of course. But I should at all events have considered that possibility carefully, if I had been going out again.”

Again a spell of silence followed upon his words and Cynthia did not raise her eyes from her work. She was wearing a hat with a wide brim and Harry Rames could see nothing of her face.

”Won't you get your charts out and show me?” she asked. She had mastered her voice so that there was no sound of effort in it.