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.
"And it's only two-thirds empty," she declared. "Ward, why will you be
such a boy?"
"Oh, well," he grumbled, and without more ado drank off the balance.
"Now I'll read to you if you have everything you want. Adler, I think
you can open one of those windows; it's so warm out of doors."
While he ate his breakfast of toast, milk, and eggs Lloyd skimmed
through the paper, reading aloud everything she thought would be of
interest to him. Then, after a moment, her eye was caught and held by a
half-column article expanded from an Associated Press despatch.
"Oh!" she cried, "listen to this!" and continued: "'Word has been
received at this place of the safe arrival of the arctic steamship
Curlew at Tasiusak, on the Greenland coast, bearing eighteen members of
the Duane-Parsons expedition. Captain Duane reports all well and an
uneventful voyage. It is his intention to pass the winter at Tasiusak,
collecting dogs and also Esquimau sledges, which he believes superior to
European manufacture for work in rubble-ice, and to push on with the
Curlew in the spring as soon as Smith Sound shall be navigable. This may
be later than Captain Duane supposes, as the whalers who have been
working in the sound during the past months bring back news of an
unusually early winter and extraordinary quantities of pack-ice both in
the sound itself and in Kane Basin. This means a proportionately late
open season next year, and the Curlew's departure from Tasiusak may be
considerably later than anticipated. It is considered by the best arctic
experts an unfortunate circumstance that Captain Duane elected to winter
south of Cape Sabine, as the condition of the ice in Smith Sound can
never be relied upon nor foretold. Should the entrance to the sound
still be encumbered with ice as late as July, which is by no means
impossible, Captain Duane will be obliged to spend another winter at
Tasiusak or Upernvick, consuming alike his store of provisions and the
patience of his men.'"
There was a silence when Lloyd finished reading. Bennett chipped at the
end of his second egg.
"Well?" she said at length.
"Well," returned Bennett, "what's all that to me?"
"It's your work," she answered almost vehemently.
"No, indeed. It's Duane's work."
"What do you mean?"
"Let him try now."
"And you?" exclaimed Lloyd, looking intently at him.
"My dear girl, I had my chance and failed. Now--" he raised a shoulder
indifferently--"now, I don't care much about it. I've lost interest."
"I don't believe you," she cried energetically; "you of all men." Behind
Bennett's chair she had a momentary glimpse of Adler, who had tucked his
tray under his arm and was silently applauding in elaborate pantomime.
She saw his lips form the words "That's it; that's right. Go right
ahead."
"Besides, I have my book to do, and, besides that, I'm an invalid--an
invalid who drinks slop."
"And you intend to give it all up--your career?"
"Well--if I should, what then?" Suddenly he turned to her abruptly. "I
should not think _you_ would want me to go again. Do _you_ urge me to
go?"
Lloyd made a sudden little gasp, and her hand involuntarily closed upon
his as it rested near her on the table.
"Oh, no!" she cried. "Oh, no, I don't! You are right. It's not your work
now."
"Well, then," muttered Bennett as though the question was forever
settled.
Lloyd turned to her mail, and one after another slit the envelopes,
woman fashion, with a shell hairpin. But while she was glancing over the
contents of her letters Bennett began to stir uneasily in his place.
From time to time he stopped eating and shot a glance at Lloyd from
under his frown, noting the crisp, white texture of her gown and waist,
the white scarf with its high, tight bands about the neck, the tiny,
golden buttons in her cuffs, the sombre, ruddy glow of her cheeks, her
dull-blue eyes, and the piles and coils of her bronze-red hair. Then,
abruptly, he said:
"Adler, you can go."
Adler saluted and withdrew.
"Whom are your letters from?" Bennett demanded by way of a beginning.
Lloyd replaced the hairpin in her hair, answering:
"From Dr. Street, from Louise Douglass, and from--Mr. Campbell."
"Hum! well, what do they say? Dr. Street and--Louise Douglass?"
"Dr. Street asks me to take a very important surgical case as soon as I
get through here, 'one of the most important and delicate, as well as
one of the most interesting, operations in his professional experience.'
Those are his words. Louise writes four pages, but she says nothing;
just chatters."
"And Campbell?" Bennett indicated with his chin the third rather
voluminous letter at Lloyd's elbow. "He seems to have written rather
more than four pages. What does he say? Does he 'chatter' too?"
Lloyd smoothed back her hair from one temple.
"H'm--no. He says--something. But never mind what he says. Ward, I must
be going back to the City. You don't need a nurse any more."
"What's that?" Bennett's frown gathered on the instant, and with a sharp
movement of the head that was habitual to him he brought his one good
eye to bear upon her.
Lloyd repeated her statement, answering his remonstrance and
expostulation with:
"You are almost perfectly well, and it would not be at all--discreet for
me to stay here an hour longer than absolutely necessary. I shall go
back to-morrow or next day."
"But, I tell you, I am still very sick. I'm a poor, miserable, shattered
wreck."
He made a great show of coughing in hollow, lamentable tones.
"Listen to that, and last night I had a high fever, and this morning I
had a queer sort of pain about here--" he vaguely indicated the region
of his chest. "I think I am about to have a relapse."
"Nonsense! You can't frighten me at all."
"Oh, well," he answered easily, "I shall go with you--that is all. I
suppose you want to see me venture out in such raw, bleak weather as
this--with my weak lungs."
"Your weak lungs? How long since?"
"Well, I--I've sometimes thought my lungs were not very strong."
"Why, dear me, you poor thing; I suppose the climate at Kolyuchin Bay
_was_ a trifle too bracing--"
"What does Campbell say?"
"--and the diet too rich for your blood--"
"What does Campbell say?"
"--and perhaps you did overexert--"
"Lloyd Searight, what does Mr. Campbell say in that--"
"He asks me to marry him."
"To mum--mar--marry him? Well, damn his impudence!"
"Mr. Campbell is an eminently respectable and worthy gentleman."
"Oh, well, I don't care. Go! Go, marry Mr. Campbell. Be happy. I forgive
you both. Go, leave me to die alone."
"Sir, I will go. Forget that you ever knew an unhappy wom--female, whose
only fault was that she loved you."
"Go! and sometimes think of me far away on the billow and drop a silent
tear--I say, how are you going to answer Campbell's letter?"
"Just one word--'_Come_.'"
"Lloyd, be serious. This is no joke."
"Joke!" she repeated hollowly. "It is, indeed, a sorry joke. Ah! had I
but loved with a girlish love, it would have been better for me."
Then suddenly she caught him about the neck with both her arms, and
kissed him on the cheek and on the lips, a little quiver running through
her to her finger-tips, her mood changing abruptly to a deep, sweet
earnestness.
"Oh, Ward, Ward!" she cried, "all our unhappiness and all our sorrow and
trials and anxiety and cruel suspense are over now, and now we really
have each other and love each other, dear, and all the years to come are
only going to bring happiness to us, and draw us closer and nearer to
each other."
"But here's a point, Lloyd," said Bennett after a few moments and when
they had returned to coherent speech; "how about your work? You talk
about my career; what about yours? We are to be married, but I know just
how you have loved your work. It will be a hard wrench for you if you
give that up. I am not sure that I should ask it of you. This letter of
Street's, now. I know just how eager you must be to take charge of such
operations--such important cases as he mentions. It would be very
selfish of me to ask you to give up your work. It's your life-work, your
profession, your career."
Lloyd took up Dr. Street's letter, and, holding it delicately at arm's
length, tore it in two and let the pieces flutter to the floor.
"That, for my life-work," said Lloyd Searight.
As she drew back from him an instant later Bennett all at once and very
earnestly demanded:
"Lloyd, do you love me?"
"With all my heart, Ward."
"And you will be my wife?"
"You know that I will."
"Then"--Bennett picked up the little volume of "Arctic Research" which
he had received that morning, and tossed it from him upon the
floor--"that, for my career," he answered.
For a moment they were silent, looking gladly into each other's eyes.
Then Bennett drew her to him again and held her close to him, and once
more she put her arms around his neck and nestled her head down upon his
shoulder with a little comfortable sigh of contentment and relief and
quiet joy, for that the long, fierce trial was over; that there were no
more fights to be fought, no more grim, hard situations to face, no more
relentless duties to be done. She had endured and she had prevailed; now
her reward was come. Now for the long, calm years of happiness.
Later in the day, about an hour after noon, Bennett took his daily nap,
carefully wrapped in shawls and stretched out in a wicker steamer-chair
in the glass-room. Lloyd, in the meantime, was busy in the garden at the
side of the house, gathering flowers which she intended to put in a huge
china bowl in Bennett's room. While she was thus occupied Adler,
followed by Kamiska, came up. Adler pulled off his cap.
"I beg pardon, Miss," he began, turning his cap about between his
fingers. "I don't want to seem to intrude, and if I do I just guess
you'd better tell me so first off. But what did he say--or did he say
anything--the captain, I mean--this morning about going up again? I
heard you talking to him at breakfast. That's it, that's the kind of
talk he needs. I can't talk that talk to him. I'm so main scared of him.
I wouldn't 'a' believed the captain would ever say he'd give up, would
ever say he was beaten. But, Miss, I'm thinking as there's something
wrong, main wrong with the captain these days besides fever. He's
getting soft--that's what he is. If you'd only know the man that he
was--before--while we was up there in the Ice! That's his work, that's
what he's cut out for. There ain't nobody can do it but him, and to see
him quit, to see him chuck up his chance to a third-rate ice-pilot like
Duane--a coastwise college professor that don't know no more about Ice
than--than you do--it regularly makes me sick. Why, what will become of
the captain now if he quits? He'll just settle down to an ordinary
stay-at-home, write-in-a-book professor, and write articles for the
papers and magazines, and bye-and-bye, maybe, he'll get down to
lecturing! Just fancy, Miss, him, the captain, lecturing! And while he
stays at home and writes, and--oh, Lord!--lectures, somebody else,
without a fifth of his ability, will do the _work_. It'll just naturally
break my heart, it will!" exclaimed Adler, "if the captain chucks. I
wouldn't be so main sorry that he won't reach the Pole as that he quit
trying--as that a man like the captain--or like what I thought he
was--gave up and chucked when he could win."
"But, Adler," returned Lloyd, "the captain--Mr. Bennett, it seems to me,
has done his share. Think what he's been through. You can't have
forgotten the march to Kolyuchin Bay?"
But Adler made an impatient gesture with the hand that held the cap.
"The danger don't figure; what he'd have to go through with don't
figure; the chances of life or death don't figure; nothing in the world
don't figure. _It's his work_; God A'mighty cut him out for that, and
he's got to do it. Ain't you got any influence with him, Miss? Won't you
talk good talk to him? Don't let him chuck; don't let him get soft. Make
him be a Man and not a professor."
When Adler had left her Lloyd sank into a little seat at the edge of the
garden walk, and let the flowers drop into her lap, and leaned back in
her place, wide-eyed and thoughtful, reviewing in her imagination the
events of the past few months. What a change that summer had brought to
both of them; how they had been shaped anew in the mould of
circumstance!
Suddenly and without warning, they two, high-spirited, strong,
determined, had clashed together, the man's force against the woman's
strength; and the woman, inherently weaker, had been crushed and
humbled. For a time it seemed to her that she had been broken beyond
hope; so humbled that she could never rise again; as though a great
crisis had developed in her life, and that, having failed once, she must
fail again, and again, and again--as if her whole subsequent life must
be one long failure. But a greater crisis had followed hard upon the
heels of the first--the struggle with self, the greatest struggle of
all. Against the abstract principle of evil the woman who had failed in
the material conflict with a masculine, masterful will, had succeeded,
had conquered self, had been true when it was easy to be false, had
dared the judgment of her peers so only that she might not deceive.
Her momentary, perhaps fancied, hatred of Bennett, who had so cruelly
misunderstood and humiliated her, had apparently, of its own accord,
departed from her heart. Then had come the hour when the strange hazard
of fortune had reversed their former positions, when she could be
masterful while he was weak; when it was the man's turn to be broken, to
be prevailed against. Her own discomfiture had been offset by his. She
no longer need look to him as her conqueror, her master. And when she
had seen him so weak, so pathetically unable to resist the lightest
pressure of her hand; when it was given her not only to witness but to
relieve his suffering, the great love for him that could not die had
returned. With the mastery of self had come the forgetfulness of self;
and her profession, her life-work, of which she had been so proud, had
seemed to her of small concern. Now she was his, and his life was hers.
She should--so she told herself--be henceforward happy in his happiness,
and her only pride would be the pride in his achievements.
But now the unexpected had happened, and Bennett had given up his
career. During the period of Bennett's convalescence Lloyd had often
talked long and earnestly with him, and partly from what he had told her
and partly from much that she inferred she had at last been able to
trace out and follow the mental processes and changes through which
Bennett had passed. He, too, had been proved by fire; he, too, had had
his ordeal, his trial.
By nature, by training, and by virtue of the life he lived Bennett had
been a man, harsh, somewhat brutal, inordinately selfish, and at all
times magnificently arrogant. He had neither patience nor toleration for
natural human weakness. While selfish, he was not self-conscious, and it
never occurred to him, it was impossible for him to see that he was a
giant among men. His heart was callous; his whole nature and character
hard and flinty from the buffetings he gave rather than received.
Then had come misfortune. Ferriss had died, and Bennett's recognition
and acknowledgment of the fact that he, Ward Bennett, who never failed,
who never blundered, had made at last the great and terrible error of
his life, had shaken his character to its very foundations. This was
only the beginning; the breach once made, Humanity entered into the
gloomy, waste places of his soul; remorse crowded hard upon his wonted
arrogance; generosity and the impulse to make amends took the place of
selfishness; kindness thrust out the native brutality; the old-time
harshness and imperiousness gave way to a certain spirit of toleration.
It was the influence of these new emotions that had moved Bennett to
make the statement to Adler that had so astonished and perplexed his
old-time subordinate. He, Bennett, too, like Lloyd, was at that time
endeavouring to free himself from a false position, and through the
medium of confession stand in his true colours in the eyes of his
associates. Unconsciously they were both working out their salvation
along the same lines.
Then had come Bennett's resolve to give Ferriss the conspicuous and
prominent place in his book, the account of the expedition. The more
Bennett dwelt upon Ferriss's heroism, intelligence, and ability the more
his task became a labour of love, and the more the idea of self dropped
away from his thought and imagination. Then--and perhaps this was not
the least important factor in Bennett's transformation--sickness had
befallen; the strong and self-reliant man had been brought to the
weakness of a child, whom the pressure of a finger could control. He
suddenly changed places with the woman he believed he had, at such
fearful cost, broken and subdued. His physical strength, once so
enormous, was as a reed in the woman's hand; his will, so indomitable,
was as powerless as an infant's before the woman's calm resolve, rising
up there before him and overmastering him at a time he believed it to be
forever weakened.
Bennett had come forth from the ordeal chastened, softened, and humbled.
But he was shattered, broken, brought to the earth with sorrow and the
load of unavailing regret. Ambition was numb and lifeless within him.
Reaction from his former attitude of aggression and defiance had carried
him far beyond the normal.
Here widened the difference between the man and the woman. Lloyd's
discontinuance of her life-work had been in the nature of heroic
subjugation of self. Bennett's abandonment of his career was hardly
better than weakness. In the one it had been renunciation; in the other
surrender. In the end, and after all was over, it was the woman who
remained the stronger.
But for her, the woman, was it true that all was over? Had the last
conflict been fought? Was it not rather to be believed that life was one
long conflict? Was it not for her, Lloyd, to rouse that sluggard
ambition? Was not this her career, after all, to be his inspiration, his
incentive, to urge him to the accomplishment of a great work? Now, of
the two, she was the stronger. In these new conditions what was her
duty? Adler's clumsy phrases persisted in her mind. "That's his work,"
Adler had said. "God Almighty cut him out for that, and he's got to do
it. Don't let him chuck, don't let him get soft; make him be a man and
not a professor."
Had she so much influence over Bennett? Could she rouse the restless,
daring spirit again? Perhaps; but what would it mean for her--for her,
who must be left behind to wait, and wait, and wait--for three years,
for five years, for ten years--perhaps forever? And now, at this moment,
when she believed that at last happiness had come to her; when the duty
had been done, the grim problems solved; when sickness had been
overcome; when love had come back, and the calm, untroubled days seemed
lengthening out ahead, there came to her recollection the hideous lapse
of time that had intervened between the departure of the Freja and the
expedition's return; what sleepless nights, what days of unspeakable
suspense, what dreadful alternations between hope and despair, what
silent, repressed suffering, what haunting, ever-present dread of a
thing she dared not name! Was the Fear to come into her life again; the
Enemy that lurked and leered and forebore to strike, that hung upon her
heels at every hour of the day, that sat down with her to her every
occupation, that followed after when she stirred abroad, that came close
to her in the still watches of the night, creeping, creeping to her
bedside, looming over her in the darkness; the cold fingers reaching
closer and closer, the awful face growing ever more distinct, till the
suspense of waiting for the blow to fall, for the fingers to grip,
became more than she could bear, and she sprang from her bed with a
stifled sob of anguish, driven from her rest with quivering lips and
streaming eyes?
Abruptly Lloyd rose to her feet, the flowers falling unheeded from her
lap, her arms rigid at her side, her hands shut tight.
"No," she murmured, "I cannot. This, at last, is more than I can do."
Instantly Adler's halting words went ringing through her brain: "The
danger don't figure; nothing in the world don't figure. It's his work."
Adler's words were the words of the world. She alone of the thousands
whose eyes were turned toward Bennett was blinded. She was wrong. She
belonged to him, but he did not belong to her. The world demanded him;
the world called him from her side to do the terrible work that God had
made him for. Was she, because she loved him, because of her own single
anguish, to stand between him and the clamour of the world, between him
and his work, between him and God?
A work there was for him to do. He must play the man's part. The battle
must be fought again. That horrible, grisly Enemy far up there to the
north, upon the high curve of the globe, the shoulder of the world,
huge, remorseless, terrible in its vast, Titanic strength, guarding its
secret through all the centuries in the innermost of a thousand gleaming
coils, must be defied again. The monster that defended the great prize,
the object of so many fruitless quests must be once more attacked.
His was the work, for him the shock of battle, the rigour of the fight,
the fierce assault, the ceaseless onset, the unfailing and unflinching
courage.
Hers was the woman's part. Already she had assumed it; steadfast
unselfishness, renunciation, patience, the heroism greater than all
others, that sits with folded hands, quiet, unshaken, and under fearful
stress, endures, and endures, and endures. To be the inspiration of
great deeds, high hopes, and firm resolves, and then, while the fight
was dared, to wait in calmness for its issue--that was her duty, that,
the woman's part in the world's great work.
Lloyd was dimly conscious of a certain sweet and subtle element in her
love for Bennett that only of late she had begun to recognise and be
aware of. This was a certain vague protective, almost maternal,
instinct. Perhaps it was because of his present weakness both of body
and character, or perhaps it was an element always to be found in the
deep and earnest love of any noble-hearted woman. She felt that she, not
as herself individually, but as a woman, was not only stronger than
Bennett, but in a manner older, more mature. She was conscious of depths
in her nature far greater than in his, and also that she was capable of
attaining heights of heroism, devotion, and sacrifice which he, for all
his masculine force, could not only never reach, but could not even
conceive of. It was this consciousness of her larger, better nature that
made her feel for Bennett somewhat as a mother feels for a son, a sister
for her younger brother. A great tenderness mingled with her affection,
a vast and almost divine magnanimity, a broad, womanly pity for his
shortcomings, his errors, his faults. It was to her he must look for
encouragement. It was for her to bind up and reshape the great energy
that had been so rudely checked, and not only to call back his strength,
but to guide it and direct into its appointed channels.
Lloyd returned toward the glass-enclosed veranda to find Bennett just
arousing from his nap. She drew the shawls closer about him and
rearranged the pillows under his head, and then sat down on the steps
near at hand.
"Tell me about this Captain Duane," she began. "Where is he now?"
Bennett yawned and passed his hand across his face, rubbing the sleep
from his eyes.
"What time is it? I must have slept over an hour. Duane? Why, you saw
what the paper said. I presume he is at Tasiusak."
"Do you think he will succeed? Do you think he will reach the Pole?
Adler thinks he won't."
"Oh, perhaps, if he has luck and an open season."
"But tell me, why does he take so many men? Isn't that contrary to the
custom? I know a great deal about arctic work. While you were away I
read every book I could get upon the subject. The best work has been
done with small expeditions. If you should go again--when you go again,
will you take so many? I saw you quoted somewhere as being in favour of
only six or eight men."
"Ten should be the limit--but some one else will make the attempt now.
I'm out of it. I tried and failed."
"Failed--you! The idea of you ever failing, of you ever giving up! Of
course it was all very well to joke this morning about giving up your
career; but I know you will be up and away again only too soon. I am
trying to school myself to expect that."
"Lloyd, I tell you that I am out of it. I don't believe the Pole ever
can be reached, and I don't much care whether it is reached or not."
Suddenly Lloyd turned to him, the unwonted light flashing in her eyes.
"_I_ do, though," she cried vehemently. "It can be done, and
we--America--ought to do it."
Bennett stared at her, startled by her outburst.
"This English expedition," Lloyd continued, the colour flushing in her
cheeks, "this Duane-Parsons expedition, they will have the start of
everybody next year. Nearly every attempt that is made now establishes a
new record for a high latitude. One nation after another is creeping
nearer and nearer almost every year, and each expedition is profiting by
the experiences and observations made by the one that preceded it. Some
day, and not very long now, some nation is going to succeed and plant
its flag there at last. Why should it not be us? Why shouldn't _our_
flag be first at the Pole? We who have had so many heroes, such great
sailors, such splendid leaders, such explorers--our Stanleys, our
Farraguts, our Decaturs, our De Longs, our Lockwoods--how we would stand
ashamed before the world if some other nation should succeed where we
have all but succeeded--Norway, or France, or Russia, or
England--profiting by our experiences, following where we have made the
way!"
"That is very fine," admitted Bennett. "It would be a great honour, the
greatest perhaps; and once--I--well, I had my ambitions, too. But it's
all different now. Something in me died when--Dick--when--I--oh, let
Duane try. Let him do his best. I know it can't be done, and if he
should win, I would be the first to wire congratulations. Lloyd, I don't
care. I've lost interest. I suppose it is my punishment. I'm out of the
race. I'm a back number. I'm down."
Lloyd shook her head.
"I don't--I can't believe you."
"Do you want to see me go," demanded Bennett, "after this last
experience? Do you urge me to it?"
Lloyd turned her head away, leaning it against one of the veranda
pillars. A sudden dimness swam in her eyes, the choking ache she knew so
well came to her throat. Ah, life was hard for her. The very greatness
of her nature drove from her the happiness so constantly attained by
little minds, by commonplace souls. When was it to end, this continual
sacrifice of inclination to duty, this eternal abnegation, this yielding
up of herself, her dearest, most cherished wishes to the demands of duty
and the great world?
"I don't know what I want," she said faintly. "It don't seem as if one
_could_ be happy--very long."
All at once she moved close to him and laid her cheek upon the arm of
his chair and clasped his hand in both her own, murmuring: "But I have
you now, I have you now, no matter what is coming to us."
A sense of weakness overcame her. What did she care that Bennett should
fulfil his destiny, should round out his career, should continue to be
the Great Man? It was he, Bennett, that she loved--not his greatness,
not his career. Let it all go, let ambition die, let others less worthy
succeed in the mighty task. What were fame and honour and glory and the
sense of a divinely appointed duty done at last to the clasp of his hand
and the sound of his voice?
In November of that year Lloyd and Bennett were married. Two guests only
assisted at the ceremony. These were Campbell and his little daughter
Hattie.