aining, 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 weaken