rt to hide her heinous heart from me. Yet, now
I think of it, how completely did Clodagh enthral me!

Our proposed marriage was opposed by both my family and hers: by mine,
because her father and grandfather had died in lunatic asylums; and by
hers, because, forsooth, I was neither a rich nor a noble match. A
sister of hers, much older than herself, had married a common country
doctor, Peters of Taunton, and this so-called _mesalliance_ made the
so-called _mesalliance_ with me doubly detestable in the eyes of her
relatives. But Clodagh's extraordinary passion for me was to be stemmed
neither by their threats nor prayers. What a flame, after all, was
Clodagh! Sometimes she frightened me.

She was at this date no longer young, being by five years my senior, as
also, by five years, the senior of her nephew, born from the marriage of
her sister with Peters of Taunton. This nephew was Peter Peters, who was
to accompany the _Boreal_ expedition as doctor, botanist, and
meteorological assistant.

On that day of Clark's visit to me I had not been seated five minutes
with Clodagh, when I said:

'Dr. Clark--ha! ha! ha!--has been talking to me about the Expedition. He
says that if anything happened to Peters, I should be the first man he
would run to. He has had an absurd dream...'

The consciousness that filled me as I uttered these words was the
_wickedness_ of me--the crooked wickedness. But I could no more help it
than I could fly.

Clodagh was standing at a window holding a rose at her face. For quite a
minute she made no reply. I saw her sharp-cut, florid face in profile,
steadily bent and smelling. She said presently in her cold, rapid way:

'The man who first plants his foot on the North Pole will certainly be
ennobled. I say nothing of the many millions... I only wish that I was
a man!'

'I don't know that I have any special ambition that way,' I rejoined. 'I
am very happy in my warm Eden with my Clodagh. I don't like the outer
Cold.'

'Don't let me think little of you!' she answered pettishly.

'Why should you, Clodagh? I am not bound to desire to go to the North
Pole, am I?'

'But you _would_ go, I suppose, if you could?'

'I might--I--doubt it. There is our marriage....'

'Marriage indeed! It is the one thing to transform our marriage from a
sneaking difficulty to a ten times triumphant event.'

'You mean if _I_ personally were the first to stand at the Pole. But
there are many in an expedition. It is