Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 82: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

1028 pipe, was carried away in a thin blue line. He leaned his elbows on the rail, put up a foot upon a cleat and settled himself for a long stare at the decapitated Sigurda—he insisted upon considering it Sigurda. Even from where he looked he could distinguish a faint, tiny mark far away upon the moun- tain that showed a ghostly red. It may be he merely believed he saw it because he knew it was there, but in either event it added an exclamation point to his disappointment. Sointensely was he regarding the far-away spot where by all tallies there should have been a promontory and a cave full of golden chalices and jeweled crosses that he did not perceive another person had joined him at the starboard: rail, until the newcomer also put a pair of elbows on the rail and in doing so touched one fur sleeve against his own. 5 HE TURNED, a bit startled. And then amazement froze him where he stood. Beside him was Nora Lee. She did not in the least look at him, but her eyes, staring off as his own had been, were very bright and there was a wavering color in her cheek. Yet she leaned there motion- less, to all other evidences apparently at ease, her hands in their warm gloves clasped lightly before her, and her whole poise that of a long accustomed friend. For a full minute he stared at her. Be- hind them, the dog Humbug, pattering up and down the deck on three legs as usual in a search for some warm spot, gave it up with a miserable whimper and returned to the cabin below. ‘Then, as if perhaps the faint sound had roused him, Stuart straightened. ‘Shall I go away?” he asked quietly. ‘““No,”’ said Nora Lee. There was quite a prolonged silence, then: . “‘Tf you would not look at me quite so in- tently, I would like to say something to you.” Even then his eyes did not leave her promptly, but lingered, and then very slowly moved away. ‘The only sound about them was the piping of the wind in the rigging and the grinding of the ice-blocks beyond the waters of the fiord. A slow heat began stealing into Stuart’s veins. To have had her come and stand beside him like that,so quietly, so naturally, to have her remain there voluntarily near him was a thing he could not understand, Adventure but it was none the less troublously sweet. Still he waited and she said nothing. With his head slightly bowed over his clasped hands, he stole little glimpses of her, forbidden though they might be. Her fur cap had pushed her hair forward about her eyes, hiding the blue veins in the white tem- ple, and yet showing between the brown threads of it, so golden in the crisp sunlight, the everchanging flush of her graceful cheek. She leaned heavily against the rail and her breath in that pressure came half fluttering between her lips. What was she going to say to him? What did it matter, since at least she had given him the sweetness of this silence in which he might almost make believe to himself that they were friends! Quite suddenly she turned and faced him. ‘“‘T have come to ask your pardon,” she said softly, and he saw that her eyes were bright with more than the sunlight. ‘I have been very rude to you, and it was my knowing just how unpardonable it was that kept me at it—if you can understand what I mean by that. You are our guest, and I shall en- deavor in the future to behave as—as people of good breeding always do. Will you for- give me?” she abruptly added. “Forgive you? Good heavens!” His voice rang with a break in it. “‘My dear Miss Nora, it is I who have been unpardon- ably rude, and I who must ask forgiveness. You must realize that I spoke in a vein somewhat out of the normal yesterday when I undertook to instruct you in the usages of gentle society. But e ““But—it was under quite sufficient provo- cation to warrant it,” she interposed. Her face looking up into his had a childishness in its frame of curling hair that made it doubly appealing. ‘‘I want to hear you say that you forgive me.” For another instant of silence he looked down into her dove-like eyes. “Yes, I for- give you,” he said very slowly, “and with all my heart. Will you also forgive me?” A faint smile showed itself at the corners of her lips. ‘Forgive your Yes—if you wish it.”” She put out her hand to ratify the compact, and he took it and held it. “But with all your heart, you know,” he said half lightly. The wavering color in her cheeks came to. stay. ‘With all my heart, then,” she re- turned softly. TO BE CONTINUED CoMmicbook (©