Just one thing:  Lloyd must leave the case at once, that very day if it were possible.  He must save her; must turn her back from this destruction toward which she was rushing, impelled by such a foolish, mistaken notion of duty.

“Yes,” he said, “there’s just that to be done, and, by God! it shall be done.”

But would Lloyd be turned back from a course she had chosen for herself?  Could he persuade her?  Then with this thought of possible opposition Bennett’s resolve all at once tightened to the sticking point.  Never in the darkest hours of his struggle with the arctic ice had his determination grown so fierce; never had his resolution so girded itself, so nerved itself to crush down resistance.  The force of his will seemed brusquely to be quadrupled and decupled.  He would do as he desired; come what might he would gain his end.  He would stop at nothing, hesitate at nothing.  It would probably be difficult to get her from her post, but with all his giant’s strength Bennett set himself to gain her safety.

A great point that he believed was in his favour, a consideration that influenced him to adopt so irrevocable a resolution, was his belief that Lloyd loved him.  Bennett was not a woman’s man.  Men he could understand and handle like so many manikins, but the nature of his life and work did not conduce to a knowledge of women.  Bennett did not understand them.  In his interview with Lloyd when she had so strenuously denied Ferriss’ story Bennett could not catch the ring of truth.  It had gotten into his mind that Lloyd loved him.  He believed easily what he wanted to believe, and his faith in Lloyd’s love for him had become a part and parcel of his fundamental idea of things, not readily to be driven out even by Lloyd herself.

Bennett’s resolution was taken.  Never had he failed in accomplishing that upon which he set his mind.  He would not fail now.  Beyond a certain limit—­a limit which now he swiftly reached and passed—­Bennett’s determination to carry his point became, as it were, a sort of obsession; the sweep of the tremendous power he unchained carried his own self along with it in its resistless onrush.  At such, times there was no light of reason in his actions.  He saw only his point, beheld only his goal; deaf to all voices that would call him back, blind to all consideration that would lead him to swerve, reckless of everything that he trampled under foot, he stuck to his aim until that aim was an accomplished fact.  When the grip of the Ice had threatened to close upon him and crush him, he had hurled himself against its barriers with an energy and resolve to conquer that was little short of directed frenzy.  So it was with him now.

* * * * *