And this sentiment of hatred itself, independent of and apart from its object, was distasteful and foreign to her. Never in her life had Lloyd hated any one before. To be kind, to be gentle, to be womanly was her second nature, and kindness, gentleness, and womanliness were qualities that her profession only intensified and deepened. This newcomer in her heart, this fierce, evil visitor, that goaded her and pricked and harried her from day to day and throughout so many waking nights, that roused the unwonted flash in her eye and drove the hot, angry blood to her smooth, white forehead and knotted her levelled brows to a dark and lowering frown, had entered her life and being, unsought for and undesired. It did not belong to her world. Yet there it sat on its usurped throne deformed and hideous, driving out all tenderness and compunction, ruling her with a rod of iron, hardening her, embittering her, and belittling her, making a mockery of all sweetness, fleering at nobility and magnanimity, lowering the queen to the level of the fishwife.

When the first shock of the catastrophe had spent its strength and Lloyd perforce must turn again to the life she had to live, groping for its scattered, tangled ends, piecing together again as best she might its broken fragments, she set herself honestly to drive this hatred from her heart. If she could not love Bennett, at least she need not hate him. She was moved to this by no feeling of concern for Bennett. It was not a consideration that she owed to him, but something rather that was due to herself. Yet, try as she would, the hatred still remained. She could not put it from her. Hurt her and contaminate her as it did, in spite of all her best efforts, in spite of her very prayers, the evil thing abode with her, deep-rooted, strong, malignant. She saw that in the end she would continue in her profession, but she believed that she could not go on with it consistently, based as it was upon sympathy and love and kindness, while a firm-seated, active hatred dwelt with her, harassing her at every moment, and perverting each good impulse and each unselfish desire. It was an ally of the very Enemy she would be called upon to fight, a traitor that at any moment might open the gates to his triumphant entry.

But was this his only ally; was this the only false and ugly invader that had taken advantage of her shattered defence? Had the unwelcome visitor entered her heart alone? Was there not a companion still more wicked, more perverted, more insidious, more dangerous? For the first time Lloyd knew what it meant to deceive.

It was supposed by her companions, and accepted by them as a matter of course, that she had not left the bedside of her patient until after his death. At first she had joyfully welcomed this mistake as her salvation, the one happy coincidence that was to make her life possible, and for a time had ceased to think about it. That phase of the incident was closed. Matters would readjust themselves. In a few days' time the incident would be forgotten. But she found that she herself could not forget it, and that as days went on the idea of this passive, silent deception she was obliged to maintain occurred to her oftener and oftener. She remembered again how glibly and easily she had lied to her friend upon the evening of her return. How was it that the lie had flowed so smoothly from her lips? To her knowledge she had never deliberately lied before. She would have supposed that, because of this fact, falsehood would come difficult to her, that she would have bungled, hesitated, stammered. But it was the reverse that had been the case. The facility with which she had uttered the lie was what now began to disturb and to alarm her. It argued some sudden collapse of her whole system of morals, some fundamental disarrangement of the entire machine.

Abruptly she recoiled. Whither was she tending? If she supinely resigned herself to the current of circumstance, where would she be carried? Yet how was she to free herself from the current, how to face this new situation that suddenly presented itself at a time when she had fancied the real shock of battle and contention was spent and past?

How was she to go back now? How could she retrace her steps? There was but one way—correct the false impression. It would not be necessary to acknowledge that she had been forced to leave her post; the essential was that her companions should know that she had deceived them—that she had left the bedside before her patient's death. But at the thought of making such confession, public as it must be, everything that was left of her wounded pride revolted. She who had been so firm, she who had held so tenaciously to her principles, she who had posed before them as an example of devotion and courage—she could not bring herself to that.

"No, no," she exclaimed as this alternative presented itself to her mind. "No, I cannot. It is beyond me. I simply cannot do it."

But she could. Yes, she could do it if she would. Deep down in her mind that little thought arose. She could if she wanted to. Hide it though she might, cover it and bury it with what false reasoning she could invent, the little thought would not be smothered, would not be crushed out. Well, then, she would not. Was it not her chance; was not this deception which others and not herself had created, her opportunity to recover herself, to live down what had been done—what she had been forced to do, rather? Absolute right was never to be attained; was not life to be considered rather in the light of a compromise between good and evil? To do what one could under the circumstances, was not that the golden mean?

But she ought. And, quick, another little thought sprang up in the deeper recesses of her mind and took its place beside the other. It was right that she should be true. She ought to do the right. Argument, the pleas of weakness, the demands of expediency, the plausibility of compromise were all of no avail. The idea "I ought" persisted and persisted and persisted. She could and she ought. There was no excuse for her, and no sooner had she thrust aside the shifty mass of sophistries under which she had striven to conceal them, no sooner had she let in the light, than these two conceptions of Duty and Will began suddenly to grow.

But what was she to gain? What would be the result of such a course as her conscience demanded she should adopt? It was inevitable that she would be misunderstood, cruelly misjudged. What action would her confession entail? She could not say. But results did not matter; what she was to gain or lose did not matter. Around her and before her all was dark and vague and terrible. If she was to escape there was but one thing to do. Suddenly her own words came back to her:

"All we can do is to hold to what we know is right, and trust that everything will come well in the end."

She knew what was right, and she had the strength to hold to it. Then all at once there came to Lloyd a grand, breathless sense of uplifting, almost a transfiguration. She felt herself carried high above the sphere of little things, the region of petty considerations What did she care for consequences, what mattered to her the unjust condemnation of her world, if only she remained true to herself, if only she did right? What did she care for what she gained? It was no longer a question of gain or loss—it was a question of being true and strong and brave. The conflict of that day at Medford between the man's power and the woman's resistance had been cruel, the crisis had been intense, and though she had been conquered then, had it, after all, been beyond recall? No, she was not conquered. No, she was not subdued. Her will had not been broken, her courage had not been daunted, her strength had not been weakened. Here was the greater fight, here was the higher test. Here was the ultimate, supreme crisis of all, and here, at last, come what might, she would not, would not, would not fail.

As soon as Lloyd reached this conclusion she sat about carrying her resolution into effect.

"If I don't do it now while I'm strong," she told herself, "if I wait, I never will do it."

Perhaps there was yet a touch of the hysterical in her actions even then. The jangled feminine nerves were yet vibrating far above their normal pitch; she was overwrought and oversensitive, for just as a fanatic rushes eagerly upon the fire and the steel, preferring the more exquisite torture, so Lloyd sought out the more painful situation, the more trying ordeal, the line of action that called for the greatest fortitude, the most unflinching courage.

She chose to make known her real position, to correct the false impression at a time when all the nurses of the house should be together. This would be at supper-time. Since her return from Medford, Lloyd had shut herself away from the other inmates of the house, and had taken her meals in her room. With the exception of Miss Douglass and the superintendent nurse no one had seen her. She had passed her time lying at full length upon her couch, her hands clasped behind her head, or pacing the floor, or gazing listlessly out of her windows, while her thoughts raced at a gallop through her mind.

Now, however, she bestirred herself. She had arrived at her final decision early in the afternoon of the third day after her return, and at once she resolved that she would endure the ordeal that very evening.

She passed the intervening time, singularly enough, in very carefully setting her room to rights, adjusting and readjusting the few ornaments on the mantel-shelf and walls, winding the clock that struck ship's bells instead of the hours, and minutely sorting the letters and papers in her desk. It was the same as if she were going upon a long journey or were preparing for a great sickness. Toward four o'clock Miss Douglass, looking in to ask how she did, found her before her mirror carefully combing and arranging her great bands and braids of dark-red hair. The fever nurse declared that she was immensely improved in appearance, and asked at once if she was not feeling better.

"Yes," answered Lloyd, "very much better," adding: "I shall be down to supper to-night."

For some reason that she could not explain Lloyd took unusual pains with her toilet, debating long over each detail of dress and ornament. At length, toward five o'clock, she was ready, and sat down by her window, a book in her lap, to await the announcement of supper as the condemned await the summons to execution.

Her plan was to delay her appearance in the dining-room until she was sure that everybody was present; then she would go down, and, standing there before them all, say what she had to say, state the few bald facts of the case, without excuse or palliation, and leave them to draw the one inevitable conclusion.

But this final hour of waiting was a long agony for Lloyd. Her moods changed with every moment; the action she contemplated presented itself to her mind in a multitude of varying lights. At one time she quivered with the apprehension of it, as though at the slow approach of hot irons. At another she could see no reason for being greatly concerned over the matter. Did the whole affair amount to so much, after all? Her companions would, of their own accord, make excuses for her. Risking one's life in the case of a virulent, contagious disease was no small matter. No one could be blamed for leaving such a case. At one moment Lloyd's idea of public confession seemed to her little less than sublime; at another, almost ridiculous. But she remembered the case of Harriet Freeze, who had been unable to resist the quiet, unexpressed force of opinion of her fellow-workers. It would be strange if Lloyd should find herself driven from the very house she had built.

The hour before supper-time seemed interminable; the quarter passed, then the half, then the three-quarters. Lloyd imagined she began to detect a faint odour of the kitchen in the air. Suddenly the remaining minutes of the hour began to be stricken from the dial of her clock with bewildering rapidity. From the drawing-room immediately below came the sounds of the piano. That was Esther Thielman, no doubt, playing one of her interminable Polish compositions. All at once the piano stopped, and, with a quick sinking of the heart, Lloyd heard the sliding doors separating the drawing-room from the dining-room roll back. Miss Douglass and another one of the nurses, Miss Truslow, a young girl, a newcomer in the house, came out of the former's room and went downstairs, discussing the merits of burlap as preferable to wall-paper. Lloyd even heard Miss Truslow remark:

"Yes, that's very true, but if it isn't sized it will wrinkle in damp weather."

Rownie came to Lloyd's door and knocked, and, without waiting for a reply, said:

"Dinneh's served, Miss Searight," and Lloyd heard her make the same announcement at Miss Bergyn's room farther down the hall. One by one Lloyd heard the others go downstairs. The rooms and hallways on the second floor fell quiet. A faint, subdued murmur of talk came to her ears in the direction of the dining-room. Lloyd waited for five, for ten, for fifteen minutes. Then she rose, drawing in her breath, straightening herself to her full height. She went to the door, then paused for a moment, looking back at all the familiar objects—the plain, rich furniture, the book-shelves, the great, comfortable couch, the old-fashioned round mirror that hung between the windows, and her writing-desk of blackened mahogany. It seemed to her that in some way she was never to see these things again, as if she were saying good-bye to them and to the life she had led in that room and in their surroundings. She would be a different woman when she came back to that room. Slowly she descended the stairs and halted for a moment in the hall below. It was not too late to turn back even now. She could hear her companions at their supper very plainly, and could distinguish Esther Thielman's laugh as she exclaimed:

"Why, of course, that's the very thing I mean."

It was a strange surprise that Lloyd had in store for them all. Her heart began to beat heavy and thick. Could she even find her voice to speak when the time came? Would it not be better to put it off, to think over the whole matter again between now and to-morrow morning? But she moved her head impatiently. No, she would not turn back. She found that the sliding doors in the drawing-room had been closed, and so went to the door that opened into the dining-room from the hall itself. It stood ajar. Lloyd pushed it open, entered, and, closing the door behind her, stood there leaning against it.

The table was almost full; only two or three places besides her own were unoccupied. There was Miss Bergyn at the head; the fever nurse, Miss Douglass, at her right, and, lower down, Lloyd saw Esther Thielman; Delia Craig, just back from a surgical case of Dr. Street's; Miss Page, the oldest and most experienced nurse of them all; Gilbertson, whom every one called by her last name; Miss Ives and Eleanor Bogart, who had both taken doctors' degrees, and could have practised if they had desired; Miss Wentworth, who had served an apprenticeship in a missionary hospital in Armenia, and had known Clara Barton, and, last of all, the newcomer, Miss Truslow, very young and very pretty, who had never yet had a case, and upon whose diploma the ink was hardly dry.

At first, so quietly had she entered, no one took any notice of Lloyd, and she stood a moment, her back to the door, wondering how she should begin. Everybody seemed to be in the best of humour; a babel of talk was in the air; conversations were going forward, carried on across the table, or over intervening shoulders.

"Why, of course, don't you see, that's the very thing I meant—"

"—I think you can get that already sized, though, and with a stencil figure if you want it—"

"—Really, it's very interesting; the first part is stupid, but she has some very good ideas."

"—Yes, at Vanoni's. But we get a reduction, you know—"

"—and, oh, listen; this is too funny; she turned around and said, very prim and stiff, 'No, indeed; I'm too old a woman.' Funny! If I think of that on my deathbed I shall laugh—"

"—and so that settled it. How could I go on after that—?"

"—Must you tack it on? The walls are so hard—"

"Let Rownie do it; she knows. Oh, here's the invalid!"

"Oh, why, it's Lloyd! We're so glad you're able to come down!"

But when they had done exclaiming over her reappearance among them Lloyd still remained as she was, her back against the door, standing very straight, her hands at her side. She did not immediately reply. Heads were turned in her direction. The talk fell away by rapid degrees as they began to notice the paleness of her face and the strange, firm set of her mouth.

"Sit down, Lloyd," said Miss Bergyn; "don't stand. You are not very well yet; I'll have Rownie bring you a glass of sherry."

There was a silence. Then at length:

"No," said Lloyd quietly. "I don't want any sherry. I don't want any supper. I came down to tell you that you are all wrong in thinking I did what I could with my typhoid case at Medford. You think I left only after the patient had died. I did not; I left before. There was a crisis of some kind. I don't know what it was, because I was not in the sick-room at the time, and I did not go when I was called. The doctor was not there either; he had gone out and left the case in my charge. There was nobody with the patient but a servant. The servant called me, but I did not go. Instead I came away and left the house. The patient died that same day. It is that that I wanted to tell you. Do you all understand—perfectly? I left my patient at the moment of a crisis, and with no one with him but a servant. And he died that same afternoon."

Then she went out, and the closing of the door jarred sharply upon the great silence that had spread throughout the room.

Lloyd went back to her room, closed and locked the door, and, sinking down upon the floor by the couch, bowed her head upon her folded arms. But she was in no mood for weeping, and her eyes were dry. She was conscious chiefly that she had taken an irrevocable step, that her head had begun to ache. There was no exhilaration in her mind now; she did not feel any of the satisfaction of attainment after struggle, of triumph after victory. More than once she even questioned herself if, after all, her confession had been necessary. But now she was weary unto death of the whole wretched business. Now she only knew that her head was aching fiercely; she did not care either to look into the past or forward into the future. The present occupied her; for the present her head was aching.

But before Lloyd went to bed that night Miss Bergyn knew the whole truth as to what had happened at Dr. Pitts's house. The superintendent nurse had followed Lloyd to her room almost immediately, and would not be denied. She knew very well that Lloyd Searight had never left a dying patient of her own volition. Intuitively she guessed at something hidden.

"Lloyd," she said decisively, "don't ask me to believe that you went of your own free will. Tell me just what happened. Why did you go? Ask me to believe anything but that you—no, I won't say the word. There was some very good reason, wasn't there?"

"I—I cannot explain," Lloyd answered. "You must think what you choose. You wouldn't understand."

But, happily, when Lloyd's reticence finally broke Miss Bergyn did understand. The superintendent nurse knew Bennett only by report. But Lloyd she had known for years, and realised that if she had yielded, it had only been after the last hope had been tried. In the end Lloyd told her everything that had occurred. But, though she even admitted Bennett's affection for her, she said nothing about herself, and Miss Bergyn did not ask.

"I know, of course," said the superintendent nurse at length, "you hate to think that you were made to go; but men are stronger than women, Lloyd, and such a man as that must be stronger than most men. You were not to blame because you left the case, and you are certainly not to blame for Mr. Ferriss's death. Now I shall give it out here in the house that you had a very good reason for leaving your case, and that while we can't explain it any more particularly, I have had a talk with you and know all about it, and am perfectly satisfied. Then I shall go out to Medford and see Dr. Pitts. It would be best," she added, for Lloyd had made a gesture of feeble dissent. "He must understand perfectly, and we need not be afraid of any talk about the matter at all. What has happened has happened 'in the profession,' and I don't believe it will go any further."

* * * * *

Lloyd returned to Bannister toward the end of the week. How long she would remain she did not know, but for the present the association of the other nurses was more than she was able to bear. Later, when the affair had become something of an old story, she would return, resuming her work as though nothing had happened.

Hattie met her at the railway station with the phaeton and the ponies. She was radiant with delight at the prospect of having Lloyd all to herself for an indefinite period of time.

"And you didn't get sick, after all?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands. "Was your patient as sick as I was? Weren't his parents glad that you made him well again?"

Lloyd put her hand over the little girl's mouth.

"Let us not talk any 'shop,' Hattie," she said, trying to smile.

But on the morning after her arrival Lloyd woke in her own white room of the old farmhouse, abruptly conscious of some subtle change that had occurred to her overnight. For the first time since the scene in the breakfast-room at Medford she was aware of a certain calmness that had come to her. Perhaps she had at last begun to feel the good effects of the trial by fire which she had voluntarily undergone—to know a certain happiness that now there was no longer any deceit in her heart. This she had uprooted and driven out by force of her own will. It was gone. But now, on this morning, she seemed to feel that this was not all.

Something else had left her—something that of late had harassed her and goaded her and embittered her life, and mocked at her gentleness and kindness, was gone. That fierce, truculent hatred that she had so striven to put from her, now behold! of its own accord, it had seemed to leave her. How had it happened? Before she had dared the ordeal of confession this feeling of hatred, this perverse and ugly changeling that had brooded in her heart, had seemed too strong, too deeply seated to be moved. Now, suddenly, it had departed, unbidden, without effort on her part.

Vaguely Lloyd wondered at this thing. In driving deceit from her it would appear that she had also driven out hatred, that the one could not stay so soon as the other had departed. Could the one exist apart from the other? Was there, then, some strange affinity in all evil, as, perhaps, in all good, so that a victory over one bad impulse meant a victory over many? Without thought of gain or of reward, she had held to what was right through the confusion and storm and darkness. Was this to be, after all, her reward, her gain? Possibly; but she could not tell, she could not see. The confusion was subsiding, the storm had passed, but much of the darkness yet remained. Deceit she had fought from out her heart; silently Hatred had stolen after it. Love had not returned to his old place, and never, never would, but the changeling was gone, and the house was swept and garnished.



VIII.

The day after the funeral, Bennett returned alone to Dr. Pitts's house at Medford, and the same evening his trunks and baggage, containing his papers—the records, observations, journals, and log-books of the expedition—followed him.

As Bennett entered the gate of the place that he had chosen to be his home for the next year, he was aware that the windows of one of the front rooms upon the second floor were wide open, the curtains tied up into loose knots; inside a servant came and went, putting the room to rights again, airing it and changing the furniture. In the road before the house he had seen the marks of the wheels of the undertaker's wagon where it had been backed up to the horse-block. As he closed the front door behind him and stood for a moment in the hallway, his valise in his hand, he saw, hanging upon one of the pegs of the hat-rack, the hat Ferriss had last worn. Bennett put down his valise quickly, and, steadying himself against the wall, leaned heavily against it, drawing a deep breath, his eyes closing.

The house was empty and, but for the occasional subdued noises that came from the front room at the end of the hall, silent. Bennett picked up his valise again and went upstairs to the rooms that had been set apart for him. He did not hang his hat upon the hat-rack, but carried it with him.

The housekeeper, who met him at the head of the stairs and showed him the way to his apartments, inquired of him as to the hours he wished to have his meals served. Bennett told her, and then added:

"I will have all my meals in the breakfast-room, the one you call the glass-room, I believe. And as soon as the front room is ready I shall sleep there. That will be my room after this."

The housekeeper stared. "It won't be quite safe, sir, for some time. The doctor gave very strict orders about ventilating it and changing the furniture."

Bennett merely nodded as if to say he understood, and the housekeeper soon after left him to himself. The afternoon passed, then the evening. Such supper as Bennett could eat was served according to his orders in the breakfast-room. Afterward he called Kamiska, and went for a long walk over the country roads in a direction away from the town, proceeding slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. Later, toward ten o'clock, he returned. He went upstairs toward his room with the half-formed idea of looking over and arranging his papers before going to bed. Sleep he could not; he foresaw that clearly.

But Bennett was not yet familiar with the arrangement of the house. His mind was busy with other things; he was thoughtful, abstracted, and upon reaching the stair landing on the second floor, turned toward the front of the house when he should have turned toward the rear. He entered what he supposed to be his room, lit the gas, then stared about him in some perplexity.

The room he was in was almost bare of furniture. Even part of the carpet had been taken up. The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress and bolster. For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he started sharply. This was—had been—the sick-room. Here, upon that bed, Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama wherein he, Bennett, had played so conspicuous a part.

As Bennett stood there looking about him, one hand upon the foot-board of the bed, a strange, formless oppression of the spirit weighed heavily upon him. He seemed to see upon that naked bed the wasted, fever-stricken body of the dearest friend he had ever known. It was as though Ferriss were lying in state there, with black draperies hung about the bier and candles burning at the head and foot. Death had been in that room. Empty though it was, a certain religious solemnity, almost a certain awe, seemed to bear down upon the senses. Before he knew it Bennett found himself kneeling at the denuded bed, his face buried, his arms flung wide across the place where Ferriss had last reposed.

He could not say how long he remained thus—perhaps ten minutes, perhaps an hour. He seemed to come to himself once more when he stepped out into the hall again, closing and locking the door of the death-room behind him. But now all thought of work had left him. In the morning he would arrange his papers. It was out of the question to think of sleep. He descended once more to the lower floor of the silent house, and stepped out again into the open air.

On the veranda, close beside him, was a deep-seated wicker arm-chair. Bennett sank down into it, drawing his hands wearily across his forehead. The stillness of a summer night had settled broadly over the vast, dim landscape. There was no moon; all the stars were out. Very far off a whippoorwill was calling incessantly. Once or twice from the little orchard close at hand an apple dropped with a faint rustle of leaves and a muffled, velvety impact upon the turf. Kamiska, wide awake, sat motionless upon her haunches on the steps, looking off into the night, cocking an ear to every faintest sound.

Well, Ferriss was dead, and he, Bennett, was responsible. His friend, the man whom most he loved, was dead. The splendid fight he had made for his life during that ferocious struggle with the Ice had been all of no effect. Without a murmur, without one complaint he had borne starvation, the bitter arctic cold, privation beyond words, the torture of the frost that had gnawed away his hands, the blinding fury of the snow and wind, the unceasing and incredible toil with sledge and pack—all the terrible hardship of an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole, only to die miserably in his bed, alone, abandoned by the man and woman whom, of all people of the world, he had most loved and trusted. And he, Bennett, had been to blame.

Was Ferriss conscious during that last moment? Did he know; would he, sometime, somewhere, know? It could not be said. Forever that must remain a mystery. And, after all, had Bennett done right in keeping Lloyd from the sick-room? Now that all was over, now that the whole fearful tragedy could be judged somewhat calmly and in the light of reason, the little stealthy doubt began to insinuate itself.

At first he had turned from it, raging and furious, stamping upon it as upon an intruding reptile. The rough-hewn, simple-natured man, with his arrogant and vast self-confidence, his blind, unshaken belief in the wisdom of his own decisions, had never in his life before been willing to admit that he could be mistaken, that it was possible for him to resolve upon a false line of action. He had always been right. But now a change had come. A woman had entangled herself in the workings of his world, the world that hitherto had been only a world of men for him—and now he faltered, now he questioned himself, now he scrutinised his motives, now the simple became complicated, the straight crooked, right mingled with wrong, bitter with sweet, falseness with truth.

He who had faith in himself to remove mountains, he who could drive his fellow-men as a herder drives his sheep, he who had forced the vast grip of the Ice, had, with a battering ram's force, crushed his way through those terrible walls, shattered and breached and broken down the barriers, now in this situation involving a woman—had he failed? Had he weakened? And bigger, stronger, and more persistently doubt intruded itself into his mind.

Hitherto Bennett's only salvation from absolute despair had been the firm consciousness of his own rectitude. In that lay his only comfort, his only hope, his one, strong-built fabric of defence. If that was undermined, if that was eaten away, what was there left for him? Carefully, painfully, and with such minuteness as he could command, he went over the whole affair from beginning to end, forcing his unwilling mind—so unaccustomed to such work—to weigh each chance, to gauge each opportunity. If this were so, if that had been done, then would such results have followed? Suppose he had not interfered, suppose he had stood aside, would Lloyd have run such danger, after all, and would Ferriss at this time have been alive, and perhaps recovering? Had he, Bennett, been absolutely mad; had he been blind and deaf to reason; had he acted the part of a brute—a purblind, stupid, and unutterably selfish brute—thinking chiefly of himself, after all, crushing the woman who was so dear to him, sacrificing the life of the man he loved, blundering in there, besotted and ignorant, acting the bully's part, unnecessarily frightened, cowardly where he imagined himself brave; weak, contemptibly weak, where he imagined himself strong? Might it not have been avoided if he had been even merely reasonable, as, in like case, an ordinary man would have been? He, who prided himself upon the promptness and soundness of his judgment in great crises, had lost his head and all power of self-control in this greatest crisis of all.

The doubt came back to him again and again. Trample it, stifle it, dash it from him as he would, each time it returned a little stronger, a little larger, a little more insistent. Perhaps, after all, he had made a mistake; perhaps, after all, Lloyd ran no great danger; perhaps, after all, Ferriss might now have been alive. All at once Bennett seemed to be sure of this.

Then it became terrible. Alone there, in the darkness and in the night, Bennett went down into the pit. Abruptly he seemed to come to himself—to realise what he had done, as if rousing from a nightmare. Remorse, horror, self-reproach, the anguish of bereavement, the infinite regret of things that never were to be again, the bitterness of a vanished love, self-contempt too abject for expression, the heart-breaking grief of the dreadful might-have-been, one by one, he knew them all. One by one, like the slow accumulation of gigantic burdens, the consequences of his folly descended upon him, heavier, more intolerably, more inexorably fixed with every succeeding moment, while the light of truth and reason searched every corner of his mind, and his doubt grew and hardened into certainty.

If only Bennett could have believed that, in spite of what had happened, Lloyd yet loved him, he could have found some ray of light in the darkness wherein he groped, some saving strength to bear the weight of his remorse and sorrow. But now, just in proportion as he saw clearer and truer he saw that he must look for no help in that direction. Being what Lloyd was, it was impossible for her, even though she wished it, to love him now—love the man who had broken her! The thought was preposterous. He remembered clearly that she had warned him of just this. No, that, too, the one sweetness of his rugged life, he must put from him as well—had already, and of his own accord, put from him.

How go on? Of what use now was ambition, endeavour, and the striving to attain great ends? The thread of his life was snapped; his friend was dead, and the love of the one woman of his world. For both he was to blame. Of what avail was it now to continue his work?

Ferriss was dead. Who now would stand at his side when the darkness thickened on ahead and obstacles drew across the path and Death overhead hung poised and menacing?

Lloyd's love for him was dead. Who now to bid him godspeed as his vessel's prow swung northward and the water whitened in her wake? Who now to wait behind when the great fight was dared again, to wait behind and watch for his home-coming; and when the mighty hope had been achieved, the goal of all the centuries attained, who now to send that first and dearest welcome out to him when the returning ship showed over the horizon's rim, flagged from her decks to her crosstrees in all the royal blazonry of an immortal triumph?

Now, that triumph was never to be for him. Ambition, too, was dead; some other was to win where now he could but lose, to gain where now he could but fail; some other stronger than he, more resolute, more determined. At last Bennett had come to this, he who once had been so imperial in the consciousness of his power, so arrogant, so uncompromising. Beaten, beaten at last; defeated, daunted, driven from his highest hopes, abandoning his dearest ambitions. And how, and why? Not by the Enemy he had so often faced and dared, not by any power external to himself; but by his very self's self, crushed by the engine he himself had set in motion, shattered by the recoil of the very force that for so long had dwelt within himself. Nothing in all the world could have broken him but that. Danger, however great, could not have cowed him; circumstances, however hopeless, could not have made him despair; obstacles, however vast, could not have turned him back. Himself was the only Enemy that could have conquered; his own power the only one to which he would have yielded. And fate had so ordered it that this one Enemy of all others, this one power of all others, had turned upon and rent him. The mystery of it! The terror of it! Why had he never known? How was it he had never guessed? What was this ruthless monster, this other self, that for so long had slept within his flesh, strong with his better strength, feeding and growing big with that he fancied was the best in him, that tricked him with his noblest emotion—the love of a good woman—lured him to a moment of weakness, then suddenly, and without warning, leaped at his throat and struck him to the ground?

He had committed one of those offences which the law does not reach, but whose punishment is greater than any law can inflict. Retribution had been fearfully swift. His career, Ferriss, and Lloyd—ambition, friendship, and the love of a woman—had been a trinity of dominant impulses in his life. Abruptly, almost in a single instant, he had lost them all, had thrown them away. He could never get them back. Bennett started sharply. What was this on his cheek; what was this that suddenly dimmed his eyes? Had it actually come to this? And this was he—Bennett—the same man who had commanded the Freja expedition. No, it was not the same man. That man was dead. He ground his teeth, shaken with the violence of emotions that seemed to be tearing his heart to pieces. Lost, lost to him forever! Bennett bowed his head upon his folded arms. Through his clenched teeth his words seemed almost wrenched from him, each word an agony.

"Dick—Dick, old man, you're gone, gone from me, and it was I who did it; and Lloyd, she too—she—God help me!"

Then the tension snapped. The great, massive frame shook with grief from head to heel, and the harsh, angular face, with its salient jaw and hard, uncouth lines, was wet with the first tears he had ever known.

He was roused at length by a sudden movement on the part of the dog. Kamiska had risen to her feet with a low growl, then, as the gate-latch clinked, she threw up her head and gave tongue to the night with all the force of her lungs. Bennett straightened up, thanking fortune that the night was dark, and looked about him. A figure was coming up the front walk, the gravel crunching under foot. It was the figure of a man. At the foot of the steps of the veranda he paused, and as Bennett made a movement turned in his direction and said:

"Is this Dr. Pitts's house?"

Bennett's reply was drowned in the clamour of the dog, but the other seemed to understand, for he answered:

"I'm looking for Mr. Ferriss—Richard Ferriss, of the Freja; they told me he was brought here."

Kamiska stopped her barking, sniffed once or twice at the man's trouser legs; then, in brusque frenzy of delight, leaped against him, licking his hands, dancing about him on two legs, whining and yelping.

Bennett came forward, and the man changed his position so that the light from the half-open front door shone upon his face.

"Why, Adler!" exclaimed Bennett; "well, where did you come from?"

"Mr. Bennett!" almost shouted the other, snatching off his cap. "It ain't really you, sir!" His face beamed and radiated a joy little short of beatitude. The man was actually trembling with happiness. Words failed him, and as with a certain clumsy tenderness he clasped Bennett's hand in both his own his old-time chief saw the tears in his eyes.

"Oh! Maybe I ain't glad to see you, sir—I thought you had gone away—I didn't know where—I—I didn't know as I was ever going to see you again."

Kamiska herself had been no less tremulously glad to see Adler than was Adler to see Bennett. He stammered, he confused himself, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes danced, he laughed and choked, he dropped his cap. His joy was that of a child, unrestrained, unaffected, as genuine as gold. When they turned back to the veranda he eagerly drew up Bennett's chair for him, his eyes never leaving his face. It was the quivering, inarticulate affection of a dog for its master, faithful, submissive, unquestioning, happy for hours over a chance look, a kind word, a touch of the hand. To Adler's mind it would have been a privilege and an honour to have died for Bennett. Why, he was his chief, his king, his god, his master, who could do no wrong. Bennett could have slain him where he stood and Adler would still have trusted him.

Adler would not sit down until Bennett had twice ordered him to do so, and then he deposited himself in a nearby chair, in as uncomfortable a position as he could devise, allowing only the smallest fraction of his body to be supported as a mark of deference. He remained uncovered, and from time to time nervously saluted. But suddenly he remembered the object of his visit.

"Oh, but I forgot—seeing you like this, unexpected, sir, clean drove Mr. Ferriss out of my mind. How is he getting on? I saw in the papers he was main sick."

"He's dead," said Bennett quietly.

Adler was for the moment stricken speechless. His jaw dropped; he stared, and caught his breath.

"Mr. Ferriss dead!" he exclaimed at length. "I—I can't believe it." He crossed himself rapidly. Bennett made no reply, and for upward of five minutes the two men sat motionless in the chairs, looking off into the night. After a while Adler broke silence and asked a few questions as to Ferriss's sickness and the nature and time of his death—questions which Bennett answered as best he might. But it was evident that Bennett, alive and present there in the flesh, was more to Adler than Ferriss dead.

"But you're all right, sir, ain't you?" he asked at length. "There ain't anything the matter with you?"

"No," said Bennett; looking at him steadily; then suddenly he added:

"Adler, I was to blame for Mr. Ferriss's death. If it hadn't been for me he would probably have been alive to-night. It was my fault. I did what I thought was right, when I knew all the time, just as I know now, that I was wrong. So, when any one asks you about Mr. Ferriss's death you are to tell him just what you know about it—understand? Through a mistake I was responsible for his death. I shall not tell you more than that, but that much you ought to know."

Adler looked at Bennett curiously and with infinite amazement. The order of his universe was breaking up about his ears. Bennett, the inscrutable, who performed his wonders in a mystery, impenetrable to common eyes, who moved with his head in the clouds, behold! he was rendering account to him, Adler, the meanest of his subjects—the king was condescending to the vassal, was admitting him to his confidence. And what was this thing he was saying, that he was responsible for Ferriss's death? Adler did not understand; his wits could not adjust themselves to such information. Ferriss was dead, but how was Bennett to blame? The king could do no wrong. Adler did not understand. No doubt Bennett was referring to something that had happened during the retreat over the ice—something that had to be done, and that in the end, and after all this lapse of time, had brought about Mr. Ferriss's death. In any case Bennett had done what was right. For that matter he had been responsible for McPherson's death; but what else had there been to do?

Bennett had spoken as he did after a moment's rapid thinking. To Adler's questions as to the manner of the chief engineer's death Bennett had at first given evasive replies. But a sudden sense of shame at being compelled to dissemble before a subordinate had lashed him across the face. True, he had made a mistake—a fearful, unspeakable mistake—but at least let him be man enough to face and to accept its consequences. It might not be necessary or even expedient to make acknowledgment of his folly in all quarters, but at that moment it seemed to him that his men—at least one of them—who had been under the command of himself and his friend, had a right to be told the truth. It had been only one degree less distasteful to undeceive Adler than it had been to deceive him in the first place. Bennett was not the general to explain his actions to his men. But he had not hesitated a moment.

However, Adler was full of another subject, and soon broke out with:

"You know, sir, there's another expedition forming; I suppose you have heard—an English one. They call it the Duane-Parsons expedition. They are going to try the old route by Smith Sound. They are going to winter at Tasiusak, and try to get through the sound as soon as the ice breaks up in the spring. But Duane's ideas are all wrong. He'll make no very high northing, not above eighty-five. I'll bet a hat. When we go up again, sir, will you—will you let me—will you take me along? Did I give satisfaction this last—"

"I'm never going up again, Adler," answered Bennett.

"Sho!" said Adler a little blankly. "I thought sure—I never thought that you—why, there ain't no one else but you can do it, captain."

"Oh, yes, there is," said Bennett listlessly. "Duane can—if he has luck. I know him. He's a good man. No, I'm out of it, Adler; I had my chance. It is somebody else's turn now. Do you want to go with Duane? I can give you letters to him. He'd be glad to have you, I know."

Adler started from his place.

"Why, do you think—" he exclaimed vehemently—"do you think I'd go with anybody else but you, sir? Oh, you will be going some of these days, I'm sure of it. We—we'll have another try at it, sir, before we die. We ain't beaten yet."

"Yes, we are, Adler," returned Bennett, smiling calmly; "we'll stay at home now and write our book. But we'll let some one else reach the Pole. That's not for us—never will be, Adler."

At the end of their talk some half-hour later Adler stood up, remarking:

"Guess I'd better be standing by if I'm to get the last train back to the City to-night. They told me at the station that she'd clear about midnight." Suddenly he began to show signs of uneasiness, turning his cap about between his fingers, changing his weight from foot to foot. Then at length:

"You wouldn't be wanting a man about the place, would you, sir?" And before Bennett could reply he continued eagerly, "I've been a bit of most trades in my time, and I know how to take care of a garden like as you have here; I'm a main good hand with plants and flower things, and I could help around generally." Then, earnestly, "Let me stay, sir—it won't cost—I wouldn't think of taking a cent from you, captain. Just let me act as your orderly for a spell, sir. I'd sure give satisfaction; will you, sir—will you?"

"Nonsense, Adler," returned Bennett; "stay, if you like. I presume I can find use for you. But you must be paid, of course."

"Not a soomarkee," protested the other almost indignantly.

The next day Adler brought his chest down from the City and took up his quarters with Bennett at Medford. Though Dr. Pitts had long since ceased to keep horses, the stable still adjoined the house, and Adler swung his hammock in the coachman's old room. Bennett could not induce him to room in the house itself. Adler prided himself that he knew his place. After their first evening's conversation he never spoke to Bennett until spoken to first, and the resumed relationship of commander and subordinate was inexpressibly dear to him. It was something to see Adler waiting on the table in the "glass-room" in his blue jersey, standing at attention at the door, happy in the mere sight of Bennett at his meals. In the mornings, as soon as breakfast was ready, it was Adler's privilege to announce the fact to Bennett, whom he usually found already at work upon his writing. Returning thence to the dining-room, Adler waited for his lord to appear. As soon as he heard Bennett's step in the hall a little tremor of excitement possessed him. He ran to Bennett's chair, drawing it back for him, and as soon as Bennett had seated himself circled about him with all the pride and solicitude of a motherly hen. He opened his napkin for him, delivered him his paper, and pushed his cup of coffee a half-inch nearer his hand. Throughout the duration of the meal he hardly took his eyes from Bennett's face, watching his every movement with a glow of pride, his hands gently stroking one another in an excess of satisfaction and silent enjoyment.

The days passed; soon a fortnight was gone by. Drearily, mechanically, Bennett had begun work upon his book, the narrative of the expedition. It was repugnant to him. Long since he had lost all interest in polar exploration. As he had said to Adler, he was out of it, finally and irrevocably. His bolt was shot; his role upon the stage of the world was ended. He only desired now to be forgotten as quickly as possible, to lapse into mediocrity as easily and quietly as he could. Fame was nothing to him now. The thundering applause of an entire world that had once been his was mere noise, empty and meaningless. He did not care to reawaken it. The appearance of his book he knew was expected and waited for in every civilised nation of the globe. It would be printed in languages whereof he was ignorant, but it was all one with him now.

The task of writing was hateful to him beyond expression, but with such determination as he could yet summon to his aid Bennett stuck to it, eight, ten, and sometimes fourteen hours each day. In a way his narrative was an atonement. Ferriss was its hero. Almost instinctively Bennett kept the figure of himself, his own achievements, his own plans and ideas, in the background. On more than one page he deliberately ascribed to Ferriss triumphs which no one but himself had attained. It was Ferriss who was the leader, the victor to whom all laurels were due. It was Ferriss whose example had stimulated the expedition to its best efforts in the darkest hours; it was, practically, Ferriss who had saved the party after the destruction of the ship; whose determination, unbroken courage, endurance, and intelligence had pervaded all minds and hearts during the retreat to Kolyuchin Bay.

"Though nominally in command," wrote Bennett, "I continually gave place to him. Without his leadership we should all, unquestionably, have perished before even reaching land. His resolution to conquer, at whatever cost, was an inspiration to us all. Where he showed the way we had to follow; his courage was never daunted, his hope was never dimmed, his foresight, his intelligence, his ingenuity in meeting and dealing with apparently unsolvable problems were nothing short of marvellous. His was the genius of leadership. He was the explorer, born to his work."

One day, just after luncheon, as Bennett, according to his custom, was walking in the garden by the house, smoking a cigar before returning to his work, he was surprised to find himself bleeding at the nose. It was but a trifling matter, and passed off in a few moments, but the fact of its occurrence directed his attention to the state of his health, and he told himself that for the last few days he had not been at all his accustomed self. There had been dull pains in his back and legs; more than once his head had pained him, and of late the continuance of his work had been growing steadily more obnoxious to him, the very physical effort of driving the pen from line to line was a burden.

"Hum!" he said to himself later on in the day, when the bleeding at the nose returned upon him, "I think we need a little quinine."

But the next day he found he could not eat, and all the afternoon, though he held doggedly to his work, he was troubled with nausea. At times a great weakness, a relaxing of all the muscles, came over him. In the evening he sent a note to Dr. Pitts's address in the City, asking him to come down to Medford the next day.

* * * * *

On the Monday morning of the following week, some two hours after breakfast, Lloyd met Miss Douglass on the stairs, dressed for the street and carrying her nurse's bag.

"Are you going out?" she asked of the fever nurse in some astonishment. "Where are you going?" for Lloyd had returned to duty, and it was her name that now stood at the top of the list; "I thought it was my turn to go out," she added.

Miss Douglass was evidently much confused.

Her meeting with Lloyd had apparently been unexpected. She halted upon the stairs in great embarrassment, stammering:

"No—no, I'm on call. I—I was called out of my turn—specially called—that was it."

"Were you?" demanded Lloyd sharply, for the other nurse was disturbed to an extraordinary degree.

"Well, then; no, I wasn't, but the superintendent—Miss Bergyn—she thought—she advised—you had better see her."

"I will see her," declared Lloyd, "but don't you go till I find out why I was skipped."

Lloyd hurried at once to Miss Bergyn's room, indignant at this slight. Surely, after what had happened, she was entitled to more consideration than this. Of all the staff in the house she should have been the one to be preferred.

Miss Bergyn rose at Lloyd's sudden entrance into her room, and to her question responded:

"It was only because I wanted to spare you further trouble and—and embarrassment, Lloyd, that I told Miss Douglass to take your place. This call is from Medford. Dr. Pitts was here himself this morning, and he thought as I did."

"Thought what? I don't understand."

"It seemed to me," answered the superintendent nurse, "that this one case of all others would be the hardest, the most disagreeable for you to take. It seems that Mr. Bennett has leased Dr. Pitts's house from him. He is there now. At the time when Mr. Ferriss was beginning to be ill Mr. Bennett was with him a great deal and undertook to nurse him till Dr. Pitts interfered and put a professional nurse on the case. Since then, too, the doctor has found out that Mr. Bennett has exposed himself imprudently. At any rate, in some way he has contracted the same disease and is rather seriously ill with it. Dr. Pitts wants us to send him a nurse at once. It just happened that it was your turn, and I thought I had better skip your name and send Louise Douglass."

Lloyd sank into a chair, her hands falling limply in her lap. A frown of perplexity gathered on her forehead. But suddenly she exclaimed:

"I know—that's all as it may be; but all the staff know that it is my turn to go; everybody in the house knows who is on call. How will it be—what will be thought when it is known that I haven't gone—and after—after my failing once—after this—this other affair? No, I must go. I, of all people, must go—and just because it is a typhoid case, like the other."

"But, Lloyd, how can you?"

True, how could she? Her patient would be the same man who had humiliated her and broken her, had so cruelly misunderstood and wronged her, for whom all her love was dead. How could she face him again? Yet how refuse to take the case? How explain a second failure to her companions? Lloyd made a little movement of distress, clasping her hands together. How the complications followed fast upon each other! No sooner was one difficult situation met and disposed of than another presented itself. Bennett was nothing to her now, yet, for all that, she recoiled instinctively from meeting him again. Not only must she meet him, but she must be with him day after day, hour after hour, at his very side, in all the intimacy that the sick-room involved. On the other hand, how could she decline this case? The staff might condone one apparent and inexplicable defection; another would certainly not be overlooked. But was not this new situation a happy and unlooked-for opportunity to vindicate her impaired prestige in the eyes of her companions? Lloyd made up her mind upon the instant. She rose.

"I shall take the case," she said.

She was not a little surprised at herself. Hardly an instant had she hesitated. On that other occasion when she had believed it right to make confession to her associates it had been hard—at times almost impossible—for her to do her duty as she saw and understood it. This new complication was scarcely less difficult, but once having attained the fine, moral rigour that had carried her through her former ordeal, it became easy now to do right under all or any circumstances, however adverse. If she had failed then, she certainly would have failed now. That she had succeeded then made it all the easier to succeed now. Dimly Lloyd commenced to understand that the mastery of self, the steady, firm control of natural, intuitive impulses, selfish because natural, was a progression. Each victory not only gained the immediate end in view, but braced the mind and increased the force of will for the next shock, the next struggle. She had imagined and had told herself that Bennett had broken her strength for good. But was it really so? Had not defeat in that case been only temporary? Was she not slowly getting back her strength by an unflinching adherence to the simple, fundamental principles of right, and duty, and truth? Was not the struggle with one's self the greatest fight of all, greater, far greater, than had been the conflict between Bennett's will and her own?

Within the hour she found herself once again on her way to Medford. How much had happened, through what changes had she passed since the occasion of her first journey; and Bennett, how he, too, changed; how different he had come to stand in her estimation! Once the thought that he was in danger had been a constant terror to her, and haunted her days and lurked at her side through many a waking night. Was it possible that now his life or death was no more to her than that of any of her former patients? She could not say; she avoided answering the question. Certainly her heart beat no faster at this moment to know that he was in the grip of a perilous disease. She told herself that her Bennett was dead already; that she was coming back to Medford not to care for and watch over the individual, but to combat the disease.

When she arrived at the doctor's house in Medford, a strange-looking man opened the door for her, and asked immediately if she was the nurse.

"Yes," said Lloyd, "I am. Is Dr. Pitts here?"

"Upstairs in his room," answered the other in a whisper, closing the front door with infinite softness. "He won't let me go in, the doctor won't; I—I ain't seen him in four days. Ask the doctor if I can't just have a blink at him—just a little blink through the crack of the door. Just think, Miss, I ain't seen him in four days! Just think of that! And look here, they ain't giving him enough to eat—nothing but milk and chicken soup with rice in it. He never did like rice; that's no kind of rations for a sick man. I fixed him up a bit of duff yesterday, what he used to like so much aboard ship, and Pitts wouldn't let him have it. He regularly laughed in my face."

Lloyd sent word to the doctor by the housekeeper that she had arrived, and on going up found Pitts waiting for her at the door of the sick-room, not that which had been occupied by Ferriss, but another—the guest-chamber of the house, situated toward the rear of the building.

"Why, I expected Miss Douglass!" exclaimed the doctor in a low voice as soon as his eye fell upon Lloyd. "Any one of them but you!"

"I had to come," Lloyd answered quietly, flushing hotly for all that. "It was my turn, and it was not right for me to stay away."

The doctor hesitated an instant, and then dismissed the subject, putting his chin in the air as if to say that, after all, it was not his affair.

"Well," he said, "it's queer to see how things will tangle themselves sometimes. I don't know whether he took this thing from Ferriss or not. Both of them were exposed to the same conditions when their expedition went to pieces and they were taken off by the whaling ships—bad water, weakened constitution, not much power of resistance; in prime condition for the bacillus, and the same cause might have produced the same effect; at any rate, he's in a bad way."

"Is he—very bad?" asked Lloyd.

"Well, he's not the hang-on sort that Mr. Ferriss was; nothing undecided about Captain Ward Bennett; when he's sick, he's sick; rushes right at it like a blind bull. He's as bad now as Mr. Ferriss was in his third week."

"Do you think he will recognise me?"

The doctor shook his head. "No; delirious most of the time—of course—regulation thing. If we don't keep the fever down he'll go out sure. That's the danger in his case. Look at him yourself; here he is. The devil! The animal is sitting up again."

As Lloyd entered the room she saw Bennett sitting bolt upright in his bed, staring straight before him, his small eyes, with their deforming cast, open to their fullest extent, the fingers of his shrunken, bony hands dancing nervously on the coverlet. A week's growth of stubble blackened the lower part of his face. Without a moment's pause he mumbled and muttered with astonishing rapidity, but for the most part the words were undistinguishable. It was, indeed, not the same Bennett, Lloyd had last seen. The great body was collapsed upon itself; the skin of the face was like dry, brown parchment, and behind it the big, massive bones stood out in great knobs and ridges. It needed but a glance to know that here was a man dangerously near to his death. While Lloyd was removing her hat and preparing herself for her work the doctor got Bennett upon his back again and replenished the ice-pack about his head.

"Not much strength left in our friend now," he murmured.

"How long has he been like this?" asked Lloyd as she arranged the contents of her nurse's bag on a table near the window.

"Pretty close to eight hours now. He was conscious yesterday morning, however, for a little while, and wanted to know what his chances were."

They were neither good nor many; the strength once so formidable was ebbing away like a refluent tide, and that with ominous swiftness. Stimulate the life as the doctor would, strive against the enemy's advance as Lloyd might, Bennett continued to sink.

"The devil of it is," muttered the doctor, "that he don't seem to care. He had as soon give up as not. It's hard to save a patient that don't want to save himself. If he'd fight for his life as he did in the arctic, we could pull him through yet. Otherwise—" he shrugged his shoulders almost helplessly.

The next night toward nine o'clock Lloyd took the doctor's place at their patient's bedside, and Pitts, without taking off his clothes, stretched himself out upon the sofa in one of the rooms on the lower floor of the house, with the understanding that the nurse was to call him in case of any change.

But as the doctor was groping his way down the darkened stairway he stumbled against Adler and Kamiska. Adler was sitting on one of the steps, and the dog was on her haunches close at his side; the two were huddled together there in the dark, broad awake, shoulder to shoulder, waiting, watching, and listening for the faint sounds that came at long intervals from the direction of the room where Bennett lay.

As the physician passed him Adler stood up and saluted:

"Is he doing any better now, sir?" he whispered.

"Nothing new," returned the other brusquely. "He may get well in three weeks' time or he may die before midnight; so there you are. You know as much about it as I do. Damn that dog!"

He trod upon Kamiska, who forbore heroically to yelp, and went on his way. Adler resumed his place on the stairs, sitting down gingerly, so that the boards should not creak under his weight. He took Kamiska's head between his hands and rocked himself gently to and fro.

"What are we going to do, little dog?" he whispered. "What are we going to do if—if our captain should—if he shouldn't—" he had no words to finish. Kamiska took her place again by his side, and the two resumed their vigil.

Meanwhile, not fifty feet away, a low voice, monotonous and rapid, was keeping up a continuous, murmuring flow of words.

"That's well your number two sledge. All hands on the McClintock now. You've got to do it, men. Forward, get forward, get forward; get on to the south, always to the south—south, south, south!... There, there's the ice again. That's the biggest ridge yet. At it now! Smash through; I'll break you yet; believe me, I will! There, we broke it! I knew you could, men. I'll pull you through. Now, then, h'up your other sledge. Forward! There will be double rations to-night all round—no—half-rations, quarter-rations.... No, three-fifths of an ounce of dog-meat and a spoonful of alcohol—that's all; that's all, men. Pretty cold night, this—minus thirty-eight. Only a quarter of a mile covered to-day. Everybody suffering in their feet, and so weak—and starving—and freezing." All at once the voice became a wail. "My God! is it never going to end?... Sh—h, steady, what was that? Who whimpered? Was that Ward Bennett? No whimpering, whatever comes. Stick it out like men, anyway. Fight it out till we drop, but no whimpering.... Who said there were steam whalers off the floe? That's a lie! Forward, forward, get forward to the south—no, not the south; to the north, to the north! We'll reach it, we'll succeed; we're most there, men; come on, come on! I tell you this time we'll reach it; one more effort, men! We're most there! What's the latitude? Eighty-five-twenty—eighty-six." The voice began to grow louder: "Come on, men; we're most there! Eighty-seven—eighty-eight—eighty-nine-twenty-five!" He rose to a sitting position. "Eighty-nine-thirty—eighty-nine-forty-five." Suddenly the voice rose to a shout. "Ninety degrees! By God, it's the Pole!"

The voice died away to indistinct mutterings.

Lloyd was at the bedside by now, and quietly pressed Bennett down upon his back. But as she did so a thrill of infinite pity and compassion quivered through her. She had forced him down so easily. He was so pitifully weak. Woman though she was, she could, with one small hand upon his breast, control this man who at one time had been of such colossal strength—such vast physical force.

Suddenly Bennett began again. "Where's Ferriss? Where's Richard Ferriss? Where's the chief engineer of the Freja Arctic Exploring Expedition?"

He fell silent again, and but for the twitching, dancing hands, lay quiet. Then he cried:

"Attention to the roll-call!"

Rapidly and in a low voice he began calling off the muster of the Freja's men and officers, giving the answers himself.

"Adler—here; Blair—here; Dahl—here; Fishbaugh—here; Hawes—here; McPherson—here; Muck Tu—here; Woodward—here; Captain Ward Bennett—here; Dr. Sheridan Dennison—here; Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss—" no answer. Bennett waited for a moment, then repeated the name, "Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss—" Again he was silent; but after a few seconds he called aloud in agony of anxiety, "Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call!"

Then once more he began; his disordered wits calling to mind a different order of things:

"Adler—here; Blair—died from exhaustion at Point Kane; Dahl—here; Fishbaugh—starved to death on the march to Kolyuchin Bay; Hawes—died of arctic fever at Cape Kammeni; McPherson—unable to keep up, and abandoned at ninth camp; Muck Tu—here; Woodward—died from starvation at twelfth camp; Dr. Sheridan Dennison—frozen to death at Kolyuchin Bay; Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss—died by the act of his best friend, Captain Ward Bennett!" Again and again Bennett repeated this phrase, calling: "Richard Ferriss! Richard Ferriss!" and immediately adding in a broken voice: "Died by the act of his best friend, Captain Ward Bennett." Or at times it was only the absence of Ferriss that seemed to torture him. He would call the roll, answering "here" to each name until he reached Ferriss; then he would not respond, but instead would cry aloud over and over again, in accents of the bitterest grief, "Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call; Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call—" Then suddenly, with a feeble, quavering cry, "For God's sake, Dick, answer to the roll-call!"

The hours passed. Ten o'clock struck, then eleven. At midnight Lloyd took the temperature (which had decreased considerably) and the pulse, and refilled the ice-pack about the head. Bennett was still muttering in the throes of delirium, still calling for Ferriss, imploring him to answer to the roll-call; or repeating the words: "Dick Ferriss, chief engineer—died at the hands of his best friend, Ward Bennett," in tones so pitiful, so heart-broken that more than once Lloyd felt the tears running down her cheeks.

"Richard Ferriss, Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call; Dick, old man, won't you answer, won't you answer, old chap, when I call you? Won't you come back and say 'It's all right?' Ferriss, Ferriss, answer to my roll-call. ... Died at the hands of his best friend. ... At Kolyuchin Bay. ... Killed, and I did it. ... Forward, men; you've got to do it; snowing to-day and all the ice in motion. ... H'up y'r other sledge. Come on with y'r number four; more pressure-ridges, I'll break you yet! Come on with y'r number four! ... Lloyd Searight, what are you doing in this room?"

On the instant the voice had changed from confused mutterings to distinct, clear-cut words. The transition was so sudden that Lloyd, at the moment busy at her nurse's bag, her back to the bed, wheeled sharply about to find Bennett sitting bolt upright, looking straight at her with intelligent, wide-open eyes. Lloyd's heart for an instant stood still, almost in terror. This sudden leap back from the darkness of delirium into the daylight of consciousness was almost like a rising from the dead, ghost-like, appalling. She caught her breath, trembling in spite of her best efforts, and for an instant leaned a hand upon the table behind her.

But on Bennett's face, ghastly, ravaged by disease, with its vast, protruding jaw, its narrow contracted forehead and unkempt growth of beard, the dawning of intelligence and surprise swiftly gave place to an expression of terrible anxiety and apprehension.

"What are you doing here, Lloyd?" he cried.

"Hush!" she answered quickly as she came forward; "above all things you must not sit up; lie down again and don't talk. You are very sick."

"I know, I know," he answered feebly. "I know what it is. But you must leave here. It's a terrible risk every moment you stay in this room. I want you to go. You understand—at once! Call the doctor. Don't come near the bed," he went on excitedly, struggling to keep himself from sinking back upon the pillows. His breath was coming quick; his eyes were flashing. All the poor, shattered senses were aroused and quivering with excitement and dread.

"It will kill you to stay here," he continued, almost breathless. "Out of this room!" he commanded. "Out of this house! It is mine now; I'm the master here—do you understand? Don't!" he exclaimed as Lloyd put her hands upon his shoulders to force him to lie down again.

"Don't, don't touch me! Stand away from me!"

He tried to draw back from her in the bed. Then suddenly he made a great effort to rise, resisting her efforts.

"I shall put you out, then," he declared, struggling against Lloyd's clasp upon his shoulders, catching at her wrists. His excitement was so intense, his fervour so great that it could almost be said he touched the edge of his delirium again.

"Do you hear, do you hear? Out of this room!"

"No," said Lloyd calmly; "you must be quiet; you must try to go to sleep. This time you cannot make me leave."

He caught her by one arm, and, bracing himself with the other against the headboard of the bed, thrust her back from him with all his might.

"Keep away from me, I tell you; keep back! You shall do as I say! I have always carried my point, and I shall not fail now. Believe me, I shall not. You—you—" he panted as he struggled with her, ashamed of his weakness, humiliated beyond words that she should know it. "I—you shall—you will compel me to use force. Don't let it come to that."

Calmly Lloyd took both his wrists in the strong, quiet clasp of one palm, and while she supported his shoulders with her other arm, laid him down among the pillows again as though he had been a child.

"I'm—I'm a bit weak and trembly just now," he admitted, panting with his exertion; "but, Lloyd, listen. I know how you must dislike me now, but will you please go—go, go at once!"

"No."

What a strange spinning of the wheel of fate was here! In so short a time had their mutual positions been reversed. Now it was she who was strong and he who was weak. It was she who conquered and he who was subdued. It was she who triumphed and he who was humiliated. It was he who implored and she who denied. It was her will and no longer his that must issue victorious from the struggle.

And how complete now was Bennett's defeat! The very contingency he had fought so desperately to avert and for which he had sacrificed Ferriss—Lloyd's care of so perilous a disease—behold! the mysterious turn of the wheel had brought it about, and now he was powerless to resist.

"Oh!" he cried, "have I not enough upon my mind already—Ferriss and his death? Are you going to make me imperil your life too, and after I have tried so hard? You must not stay here."

"I shall stay," she answered.

"I order you to go. This is my house. Send the doctor here. Where's Adler?" Suddenly he fainted.

An hour or two later, in the gray of the morning, at a time when Bennett was sleeping quietly under the influence of opiates, Lloyd found herself sitting at the window in front of the small table there, her head resting on her hand, thoughtful, absorbed, and watching with but half-seeing eyes the dawn growing pink over the tops of the apple-trees in the orchard near by.

The window was open just wide enough for the proper ventilation of the room. For a long time she sat thus without moving, only from time to time smoothing back the heavy, bronze-red hair from her temples and ears. By degrees the thinking faculties of her brain, as it were, a myriad of delicate interlacing wheels, slowly decreased in the rapidity and intensity of their functions. She began to feel instead of to think. As the activity of her mind lapsed to a certain pleasant numbness, a vague, formless, nameless emotion seemed to be welling to the surface. It was no longer a question of the brain. What then? Was it the heart? She gave no name to this new emotion; it was too confused as yet, too undefinable. A certain great sweetness seemed to be coming upon her, but she could not say whether she was infinitely sad or supremely happy; a smile was on her lips, and yet the tears began to brim in her dull-blue eyes.

She felt as if some long, fierce struggle, or series of struggles, were at last accomplished; as if for a long period of time she had been involved in the maze and tortuous passages of some gloomy cavern, but at length, thence issuing, had again beheld the stars. A great tenderness, a certain tremulous joy in all things that were true and good and right, grew big and strong within her; the delight in living returned to her. The dawn was brightening and flushing over all the world, and colour, light, and warmth were coming back into her life. The night had been still and mild, but now the first breath of the morning breeze stirred in the trees, in the grass, in the flowers, and the thick, dew-drenched bushes along the roadside, and a delicious aroma of fields and woods and gardens came to her. The sweetness of life and the sweetness of those things better than life and more enduring, the things that do not fail, nor cease, nor vanish away, suddenly entered into that room and descended upon her almost in the sense of a benediction, a visitation, something mystic and miraculous. It was a moment to hope all things, to believe all things, to endure all things.

She caught her breath, listening—for what she did not know. Once again, just as it had been in that other dawn, in that other room where the Enemy had been conquered, the sense of some great happiness was in the air, was coming to her swiftly. But now the greater Enemy had been outfought, the morning of a greater day was breaking and spreading, and the greatest happiness in the world was preparing for her. How it had happened she did not know. Now was not the moment to think, to reason, to reflect. It seemed as though the rushing of wings was all about her, as though a light brighter than the day was just about to break upon her sight, as though a music divinely beautiful was just about to burst upon her ear. But the light was not for her eye; the music was not for her ear. The radiance and the harmony came from herself, from within her. The intellect was numb. Only the heart was alive on this wonderful midsummer's morning, and it was in her heart that the radiance shone and the harmony vibrated. Back in his place once more, high on his throne, the love that she believed had forever departed from her sat exalted and triumphant, singing to the cadence of that unheard music, shining and magnificent in the glory of that new-dawned light.

Would Bennett live? Suddenly that question leaped up in her mind and stood in the eye of her imagination, terrible, menacing—a hideous, grim spectre, before which Lloyd quailed with failing heart and breath. The light, the almost divine radiance that had burst upon her, nevertheless threw a dreadful shadow before it. Beneath the music she heard the growl of the thunder. Her new-found happiness was not without its accompanying dismay. Love had not returned to her heart alone. With it had returned the old Enemy she had once believed had left her forever. Now it had come back. As before, it lurked and leered at her from dark corners. It crept to her side, to her back, ready to leap, ready to strike, to clutch at her throat with cold fingers and bear her to the earth, rending her heart with a grief she told herself she could not endure and live. She loved him now with all her mind and might; how could it ever have been otherwise? He belonged to her—and she? Why, she only lived with his life; she seemed so bound to him as to be part of his very self. Literally, she could not understand how it would be possible for her to live if he should die. It seemed to her that with his death some mysterious element of her life, something vital and fundamental, for which there was no name, would disintegrate upon the instant and leave her without the strength necessary for further existence. But this would, however, be a relief. The prospect of the years after his death, the fearful loneliness of life without him, was a horror before which she veritably believed her reason itself must collapse.

"Lloyd."

Bennett was awake again and watching her with feverish anxiety from where he lay among the pillows. "Lloyd," he repeated, the voice once so deep and powerful quavering pitifully. "I was wrong. I don't want you to go. Don't leave me."

In an instant Lloyd was at his side, kneeling by the bed. She caught one of the great, gnarled hands, seamed and corded and burning with the fever. "Never, never, dearest; never so long as I shall live."



IX.

When Adler heard Bennett's uncertain steps upon the stairs and the sound of Lloyd's voice speaking to him and urging that there was no hurry, and that he was to take but one step at a time, he wheeled swiftly about from the windows of the glass-room, where he had been watching the October breeze stirring the crimson and yellow leaves in the orchard, and drew back his master's chair from the breakfast table and stood behind it expectantly, his eyes watching the door.

Lloyd held back the door, and Bennett came in, leaning heavily on Dr. Pitts's shoulder. Adler stiffened upon the instant as if in answer to some unheard bugle-call, and when Bennett had taken his seat, pushed his chair gently to the table and unfolded his napkin with a flourish as though giving a banner to the wind. Pitts almost immediately left the room, but Lloyd remained supervising Bennett's breakfast, pouring his milk, buttering his toast, and opening his eggs.

"Coffee?" suddenly inquired Bennett. Lloyd shook her head.

"Not for another week."

Bennett looked with grim disfavour upon the glass of milk that Lloyd had placed at his elbow.

"Such slop!" he growled. "Why not a little sugar and warm water, and be done with it? Lloyd, I can't drink this stuff any more. Why, it's warm yet!" he exclaimed aggrievedly and with deep disgust, abruptly setting down the glass.

"Why, of course it is," she answered; "we brought the cow here especially for you, and the boy has just done milking her—and it's not slop."

"Slop! slop!" declared Bennett. He picked up the glass again and looked at her over the rim.

"I'll drink this stuff this one more time to please you," he said. "But I promise you this will be the last time. You needn't ask me again. I have drunk enough milk the past three weeks to support a foundling hospital for a year."

Invariably, since the period of his convalescence began, Bennett made this scene over his hourly glass of milk, and invariably it ended by his gulping it down at nearly a single swallow.

Adler brought in the mail and the morning paper. Three letters had come for Lloyd, and for Bennett a small volume on "Recent Arctic Research and Exploration," sent by his publisher with a note to the effect that, as the latest authority on the subject, Bennett was sure to find it of great interest. In an appendix, inserted after the body of the book had been made up, the Freja expedition and his own work were briefly described. Lloyd put her letters aside, and, unfolding the paper, said, "I'll read it while you eat your breakfast. Have you everything you want? Did you drink your milk—all of it?" But out of the corner of her eye she noted that Adler was chuckling behind the tray that he held to his face, and with growing suspicion she leaned forward and peered about among the breakfast things. Bennett had hidden his glass behind the toast-rack.