Frank Norris

“ Lloyd searched his face with a look of surprise and bewilderment.
"I do not understand you," she repeated.
"Oh!" exclaimed Bennett with sudden vehemence, "you could say it to Ferriss; why can't you say it to me?"
"To Mr. Ferriss?"
"You could tell him that you cared."
"I—tell Mr. Ferriss—that I cared for you?" She began to smile. "You are a little absurd, Mr. Bennett."
"And I cannot see why you should deny it now. Or if anything has caused you to change your mind—to be sorry for what you said, why should I not know it? Even a petty thief may be heard in his own defence. ”

“ Lloyd stared at him in amazement.
"It isn't possible; I don't believe you can understand. Do you know how sick he is? Do you know that he is lying at the point of death at this very moment, and that the longer I stay away from him the more his life is in peril? Has he not rights as well as I; has he not a right to live? It is not only my own humiliation that is at stake, it is the life of your dearest friend, the man who stood by you, and helped you, and who suffered the same hardships and privations as yourself."
"What's that?" demanded Bennett with a sudden frown. ”

“ Never had she conceded her point before; never had she allowed herself to be thwarted in the pursuance of a course she believed to be right. Was she, of all women, to yield now? The consciousness of her own power of resistance came suddenly to her aid. Bennett was strong, but was she not strong herself? Where under the blue sky was the power that could break down her will? When death itself could not prevail against her, what in life could shake her resolution?
Suddenly the tremendous import of the moment, the magnitude of the situation, flashed upon Lloyd. ”

“ Lloyd neither ate nor slept. Not once did she set foot out of her room, giving out that she was ill, which was not far from the truth, and keeping to herself and to the companionship of the thoughts and terrors that crowded her mind. Until that day at Medford her life had run easily and happily and in well-ordered channels. She was successful in her chosen profession and work. She imagined herself to be stronger and of finer fibre than most other women, and her love for Bennett had lent a happiness and a sweetness to her life dear to her beyond all words. ”

“ I would rather see you doing that than trying to beat Duane, than getting into the ice again. I would rather see you doing that than to know that you were away up there—in the north, in the ice, at your work again, fighting your way toward the Pole, leading your men and overcoming every obstacle that stood in your way, never giving up, never losing heart, trying to do the great, splendid, impossible thing; risking your life to reach merely a point on a chart. Yes, I would rather see you on a lecture platform than on the deck of an arctic steamship. ”

“ Bennett snapped his fingers.
"That for consistency!"
"And you would be willing to disgrace me—to have me disgrace myself?"
"Your life—" began Bennett again.
But suddenly Lloyd flashed out upon him with: "My life! My life! Are there not some things better than life? You, above all men, should understand that much. Oh, be yourself, be the man I thought you were. You have your code; let me have mine. You could not be what you are, you could not have done what you did, if you had not set so many things above merely your life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The day of the week was always a matter of conjecture. It seemed as though this life of heat and quiet and unbroken silence was to last forever.
Then suddenly there was an alerte. One morning, a day or so after Hattie Campbell had returned to the City, just as Lloyd and Bennett were finishing their breakfast in the now heavily awninged glass-room, they were surprised to see Adler running down the road toward the house, Kamiska racing on ahead, barking excitedly. Adler had gone into the town for the mail and morning's paper. ”

“ You must be brave for me now, and you must be strong for me and help me to do my duty. We must live up to the best that is in us and do what we think is right, no matter what risks we run, no matter what the consequences are. I would not have asked you to help me before—before what has happened—but now I need your help. You have said I helped you to be brave; help me to be brave now, and to do what I know is right."
But Bennett was still blind. If she had been dear to him before, how doubly so had she become since she had confessed her love for him! Ferriss was forgotten, ignored. ”

“ Bennett cleared his throat, then tugged at his mustache; "she said that?"
Ferriss nodded.
"Ah!" said Bennett with a quick breath, then he added: "I'm glad of that; you haven't any idea how glad I am, Dick—in spite of everything."
"Oh, yes, I guess I have," murmured Ferriss.
"No, no, indeed, you haven't," returned the other. "One has to love a woman like that, Dick, and have her—and find out—and have things come right, to appreciate it. She would have been my wife after all. I don't know how to thank you, Dick. Congratulate me." ”

“ Ferriss found time, even in such an hour, to wonder at the sudden and unexpected break in the uniform hardness of Bennett's character. Ferriss knew him well by now. Bennett was not a man to ask concessions, to catch at small favours. What he wanted he took with an iron hand, without ruth and without scruple. But in the unspeakable dissolution in which they were now involved did anything make a difference? The dreadful mill in which they had been ground had crushed from them all petty distinctions of personality, individuality. Humanity—the elements of character common to all men—only remained. ”

“ At one time she was almost ready to admit that she had misjudged Bennett; that, though he had acted cruelly and unjustly, he had done what he thought was best. His sacrifice of Ferriss was sufficient guarantee of his sincerity. But this mistrust of herself did not affect her feeling toward him. There were moments when she condoned his offence; there was never an instant she did not hate him.
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hattie told him, and he took himself abruptly away.
Bennett had gone some little distance down the road before the real shock came upon him. Lloyd was in a position of imminent peril; her life was in the issue. With blind, unreasoned directness he leaped at once to this conclusion, and as he strode along with teeth and fists tight shut he kept muttering to himself: "She may die, she may die—we—we may never see her again." Then suddenly came the fear, the sickening sink of heart, the choke at the throat, first the tightening and then the sudden relaxing of all the nerves. ”

“ At once Lloyd was all aroused, defending him against himself.
"Failed! And you say that? If you did not reach the Pole, what then? The world will judge you by results perhaps, and the world's judgment will be wrong. Is it nothing that you have given the world an example of heroism—"
"Oh, don't call it that."
"Of heroism, of courage, of endurance? Is it nothing that you have overcome obstacles before which other men would have died? Is it nothing that you have shown us all how to be patient, how to be strong? There are some things better even than reaching the Pole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It would be believed that she could have stayed at her patient's bedside if she had so desired. No one who did not know Bennett could understand the terrible, vast force of the man.
Try as she would, Lloyd could not but think first of herself at this moment. Bennett was ignored, forgotten. Once she had loved him, but that was all over now. The thought of Ferriss's death, for which in a manner she had been forced to be responsible, came rushing to her mind from time to time, and filled her with a horror and, at times, even a perverse sense of remorse, almost beyond words. ”

“ 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. ”