Adler’s words were the words of the world.  She alone of the thousands whose eyes were turned toward Bennett was blinded.  She was wrong.  She belonged to him, but he did not belong to her.  The world demanded him; the world called him from her side to do the terrible work that God had made him for.  Was she, because she loved him, because of her own single anguish, to stand between him and the clamour of the world, between him and his work, between him and God?

A work there was for him to do.  He must play the man’s part.  The battle must be fought again.  That horrible, grisly Enemy far up there to the north, upon the high curve of the globe, the shoulder of the world, huge, remorseless, terrible in its vast, Titanic strength, guarding its secret through all the centuries in the innermost of a thousand gleaming coils, must be defied again.  The monster that defended the great prize, the object of so many fruitless quests must be once more attacked.

His was the work, for him the shock of battle, the rigour of the fight, the fierce assault, the ceaseless onset, the unfailing and unflinching courage.

Hers was the woman’s part.  Already she had assumed it; steadfast unselfishness, renunciation, patience, the heroism greater than all others, that sits with folded hands, quiet, unshaken, and under fearful stress, endures, and endures, and endures.  To be the inspiration of great deeds, high hopes, and firm resolves, and then, while the fight was dared, to wait in calmness for its issue—­that was her duty, that, the woman’s part in the world’s great work.

Lloyd was dimly conscious of a certain sweet and subtle element in her love for Bennett that only of late she had begun to recognise and be aware of.  This was a certain vague protective, almost maternal, instinct.  Perhaps it was because of his present weakness both of body and character, or perhaps it was an element always to be found in the deep and earnest love of any noble-hearted woman.  She felt that she, not as herself individually, but as a woman, was not only stronger than Bennett, but in a manner older, more mature.  She was conscious of depths in her nature far greater than in his, and also that she was capable of attaining heights of heroism, devotion, and sacrifice which he, for all his masculine force, could not only never reach, but could not even conceive of.  It was this consciousness of her larger, better nature that made her feel for Bennett somewhat as a mother feels for a son, a sister for her younger brother.  A great tenderness mingled with her affection, a vast and almost divine magnanimity, a broad, womanly pity for his shortcomings, his errors, his faults.  It was to her he must look for encouragement.  It was for her to bind up and reshape the great energy that had been so rudely checked, and not only to call back his strength, but to guide it and direct into its appointed channels.

Lloyd returned toward the glass-enclosed veranda to find Bennett just arousing from his nap.  She drew the shawls closer about him and rearranged the pillows under his head, and then sat down on the steps near at hand.