But now the unexpected had happened, and Bennett had given up his career.  During the period of Bennett’s convalescence Lloyd had often talked long and earnestly with him, and partly from what he had told her and partly from much that she inferred she had at last been able to trace out and follow the mental processes and changes through which Bennett had passed.  He, too, had been proved by fire; he, too, had had his ordeal, his trial.

By nature, by training, 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 weakened.

Bennett had come forth from the ordeal chastened, softened, and humbled.  But he was shattered, broken, brought to the earth with sorrow and the load of unavailing regret.  Ambition was numb and lifeless within him.  Reaction from his former attitude of aggression and defiance had carried him far beyond the normal.