ches 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'