The round of their daily life was renewed, but now there was a change.  It was subtle, illusive, a vague, indefinite trouble in the air.  Lloyd had addressed herself to her task, and from day to day, from hour to hour, she held to it, unseen, unnoticed.  Now it was a remark dropped as if by chance in the course of conversation; now an extract cut from a newspaper or scientific journal, and left where Bennett would find it; now merely a look in her eyes, an instant’s significant glance when her gaze met her husband’s, or a moment’s enthusiasm over the news of some discovery.  Insensibly and with infinite caution she directed his attention to the world he believed he had abjured; she called into being his interest in his own field of action, reading to him by the hour from the writings of other men, or advancing and championing theories which she knew to be false and ridiculous, but which she goaded him to deny and refute.

One morning she even feigned an exclamation of unbounded astonishment as she opened the newspaper while the two were at breakfast, pretending to read from imaginary headlines.

“Ward, listen!  ’The Pole at Last.  A Norwegian Expedition Solves the Mystery of the Arctic.  The Goal Reached After—­’”

“What!” cried Bennett sharply, his frown lowering.

“‘—­After Centuries of Failure.’” Lloyd put down the paper with a note of laughter.

“Suppose you should read it some day.”

Bennett subsided with a good-humoured growl.

“You did scare me for a moment.  I thought—­I thought—­”

“I did scare you?  Why were you scared?  What did you think?” She leaned toward him eagerly.

“I thought—­well—­oh—­that some other chap, Duane, perhaps—­”

“He’s still at Tasiusak.  But he will succeed, I do believe.  I’ve read a great deal about him.  He has energy and determination.  If anybody succeeds it will be Duane.”

“He?  Never!”

“Somebody, then.”

“You said once that if your husband couldn’t nobody could.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” she answered cheerfully.  “But you—­you are out of it now.”

“Huh!” he grumbled.  “It’s not because I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”

“No, you could not, Ward.  Nobody can.”

“But you just said you thought somebody would some day.”

“Did I?  Oh, suppose you really should one of these days!”

“And suppose I never came back?”

“Nonsense!  Of course you would come back.  They all do nowadays.”

“De Long didn’t.”

“But you are not De Long.”

And for the rest of the day Lloyd noted with a sinking heart that Bennett was unusually thoughtful and preoccupied.  She said nothing, and was studious to avoid breaking in upon his reflections, whatever they might be.  She kept out of his way as much as possible, but left upon his desk, as if by accident, a copy of a pamphlet issued by a geographical society, open at an article upon the future of exploration within the arctic circle.  At supper that night Bennett suddenly broke in upon a rather prolonged silence with: