The room he was in was almost bare of furniture.  Even part of the carpet had been taken up.  The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress and bolster.  For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he started sharply.  This was—­had been—­the sick-room.  Here, upon that bed, Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama wherein he, Bennett, had played so conspicuous a part.

As Bennett stood there looking about him, one hand upon the foot-board of the bed, a strange, formless oppression of the spirit weighed heavily upon him.  He seemed to see upon that naked bed the wasted, fever-stricken body of the dearest friend he had ever known.  It was as though Ferriss were lying in state there, with black draperies hung about the bier and candles burning at the head and foot.  Death had been in that room.  Empty though it was, a certain religious solemnity, almost a certain awe, seemed to bear down upon the senses.  Before he knew it Bennett found himself kneeling at the denuded bed, his face buried, his arms flung wide across the place where Ferriss had last reposed.

He could not say how long he remained thus—­perhaps ten minutes, perhaps an hour.  He seemed to come to himself once more when he stepped out into the hall again, closing and locking the door of the death-room behind him.  But now all thought of work had left him.  In the morning he would arrange his papers.  It was out of the question to think of sleep.  He descended once more to the lower floor of the silent house, and stepped out again into the open air.

On the veranda, close beside him, was a deep-seated wicker arm-chair.  Bennett sank down into it, drawing his hands wearily across his forehead.  The stillness of a summer night had settled broadly over the vast, dim landscape.  There was no moon; all the stars were out.  Very far off a whippoorwill was calling incessantly.  Once or twice from the little orchard close at hand an apple dropped with a faint rustle of leaves and a muffled, velvety impact upon the turf.  Kamiska, wide awake, sat motionless upon her haunches on the steps, looking off into the night, cocking an ear to every faintest sound.

Well, Ferriss was dead, and he, Bennett, was responsible.  His friend, the man whom most he loved, was dead.  The splendid fight he had made for his life during that ferocious struggle with the Ice had been all of no effect.  Without a murmur, without one complaint he had borne starvation, the bitter arctic cold, privation beyond words, the torture of the frost that had gnawed away his hands, the blinding fury of the snow and wind, the unceasing and incredible toil with sledge and pack—­all the terrible hardship of an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole, only to die miserably in his bed, alone, abandoned by the man and woman whom, of all people of the world, he had most loved and trusted.  And he, Bennett, had been to blame.