‘My dearest Clodagh!’

’I easily might, however.  He will be here presently.  He is bringing Mr. Wilson for the evening.’ (Wilson was going as electrician of the expedition.)

‘Clodagh.’  I said, ’believe me, you jest in a manner which does not please me.’

‘Do I really?’ she answered with that haughty, stiff half-turn of her throat:  ’then I must be more exquisite.  But, thank Heaven, it is only a jest.  Women are no longer admired for doing such things.’

’Ha! ha! ha!—­no—­no logger admired, Clodagh!  Oh, my good Lord! let us change this talk....’

But now she could talk of nothing else.  She got from me that afternoon the history of all the Polar expeditions of late years, how far they reached, by what aids, and why they failed.  Her eyes shone; she listened eagerly.  Before this time, indeed, she had been interested in the Boreal, knew the details of her outfitting, and was acquainted with several members of the expedition.  But now, suddenly, her mind seemed wholly possessed, my mention of Clark’s visit apparently setting her well a-burn with the Pole-fever.

The passion of her kiss as I tore myself from her embrace that day I shall not forget.  I went home with a pretty heavy heart.

The house of Dr. Peter Peters was three doors from mine, on the opposite side of the street.  Toward one that night, his footman ran to knock me up with the news that Peters was very ill.  I hurried to his bed-side, and knew by the first glance at his deliriums and his staring pupils that he was poisoned with atropine.  Wilson, the electrician, who had passed the evening with him at Clodagh’s in Hanover Square, was there.

‘What on earth is the matter?’ he said to me.

‘Poisoned,’ I answered.

‘Good God! what with?’

‘Atropine.’

‘Good Heavens!’

‘Don’t be frightened:  I think he will recover.’

‘Is that certain?’

‘Yes, I think—­that is, if he leaves off taking the drug, Wilson.’

‘What! it is he who has poisoned himself?’

I hesitated, I hesitated.  But I said: 

‘He is in the habit of taking atropine, Wilson.’

Three hours I remained there, and, God knows, toiled hard for his life:  and when I left him in the dark of the fore-day, my mind was at rest:  he would recover.

I slept till 11 A.M., and then hurried over again to Peters.  In the room were my two nurses, and Clodagh.

My beloved put her forefinger to her lips, whispering: 

‘Sh-h-h! he is asleep....’

She came closer to my ear, saying: 

‘I heard the news early.  I am come to stay with him, till—­the last....’

We looked at each other some time—­eye to eye, steadily, she and I:  but mine dropped before Clodagh’s.  A word was on my mouth to say, but I said nothing.

The recovery of Peters was not so steady as I had expected.  At the end of the first week he was still prostrate.  It was then that I said to Clodagh: