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: