What was he like? Was he tall, and great, and noble as she imagined
him? What was the colour of his hair? How old did I think he was?
And did I suppose he had suffered much in that dreadful ice prison
in the far north?
To all of which I answered as best I could, with my very slight
knowledge of the facts she was so much interested in. O, if I had
only known who that passenger was that lay dead in the captain's
room! I could perhaps have discovered more about him before the
ship went down.
As we walked side by side across the white moorland, my companion
looked again and again at the glittering ring on her finger.
"I am glad," I said, "that I happened to bring the ring away with
me."
She sighed.
"I'd rather you had brought my mother's picture. That would have
been more to me than anything else."
"Alas!" I said. "But I did not know then that it was the picture of
your mother, Thora; and I thought it would be wrong to take it from
his hand. For it was perhaps the only thing he had to look upon in
those weary long days in the ice prison that could remind him of
his happier times. I think it must have been the last thing his
eyes rested upon while his life lingered."
"Maybe you're right, Halcro," said she; "but I'd like to have seen
the picture.
"Tell me," she continued, "d'ye know where my mother's grave is?"
"Yes, well do I know it, and I'll take you to it some day when the
snow is away.
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