Here widened the difference between the man and the woman.  Lloyd’s discontinuance of her life-work had been in the nature of heroic subjugation of self.  Bennett’s abandonment of his career was hardly better than weakness.  In the one it had been renunciation; in the other surrender.  In the end, and after all was over, it was the woman who remained the stronger.

But for her, the woman, was it true that all was over?  Had the last conflict been fought?  Was it not rather to be believed that life was one long conflict?  Was it not for her, Lloyd, to rouse that sluggard ambition?  Was not this her career, after all, to be his inspiration, his incentive, to urge him to the accomplishment of a great work?  Now, of the two, she was the stronger.  In these new conditions what was her duty?  Adler’s clumsy phrases persisted in her mind.  “That’s his work,” Adler had said.  “God Almighty cut him out for that, and he’s got to do it.  Don’t let him chuck, don’t let him get soft; make him be a man and not a professor.”

Had she so much influence over Bennett?  Could she rouse the restless, daring spirit again?  Perhaps; but what would it mean for her—­for her, who must be left behind to wait, and wait, and wait—­for three years, for five years, for ten years—­perhaps forever?  And now, at this moment, when she believed that at last happiness had come to her; when the duty had been done, the grim problems solved; when sickness had been overcome; when love had come back, and the calm, untroubled days seemed lengthening out ahead, there came to her recollection the hideous lapse of time that had intervened between the departure of the Freja and the expedition’s return; what sleepless nights, what days of unspeakable suspense, what dreadful alternations between hope and despair, what silent, repressed suffering, what haunting, ever-present dread of a thing she dared not name!  Was the Fear to come into her life again; the Enemy that lurked and leered and forebore to strike, that hung upon her heels at every hour of the day, that sat down with her to her every occupation, that followed after when she stirred abroad, that came close to her in the still watches of the night, creeping, creeping to her bedside, looming over her in the darkness; the cold fingers reaching closer and closer, the awful face growing ever more distinct, till the suspense of waiting for the blow to fall, for the fingers to grip, became more than she could bear, and she sprang from her bed with a stifled sob of anguish, driven from her rest with quivering lips and streaming eyes?

Abruptly Lloyd rose to her feet, the flowers falling unheeded from her lap, her arms rigid at her side, her hands shut tight.

“No,” she murmured, “I cannot.  This, at last, is more than I can do.”

Instantly Adler’s halting words went ringing through her brain:  “The danger don’t figure; nothing in the world don’t figure.  It’s his work.”