“I mean that he is in treaty with the leader of a scientific expedition to the Antarctic Ocean. The ships will be away three years, and if he join that expedition as doctor he will be absent for that time, with the usual hazard of being absent for ever.”
“Why is he going?”
“He has never given me any reason, but I suspect that the reason is——you.”
“Theodore!”
“If I read his secret right, he left this place deeply in love with you. He knew I loved you, and that was one reason for a man of his generous temper to withdraw. You are rich and he is poor, that makes another reason. He is too honourable to come between his friend and his friend’s love. He is too proud to offer himself with only his talents and his unfulfilled ambition to a woman of fortune. So he takes his old mistress Science for his comforter, and is going to the other side of the world to watch the planets in the Polar skies, and to keep the crew free of fever and scurvy, if he can.”
“Three years,” faltered Juanita. “It would not be so very long anywhere else—but those Polar expeditions so often end in death.”
“Shall I tell him not to go?”
“Pray do.”
“I’m afraid I shall hardly prevail with him, unless——”
“Unless what?”