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 very unlikely that _I_,
personally--'
'For _me_ you will, Adam--' she began.
'"_Will_," Clodagh?' I cried. 'You say "_will_"? there is not even the
slightest shadow of a probability--!'
'But why? There are still three weeks before the start. They say...'
She stopped, she stopped.
'They say what?'
Her voice dropped:
'That Peter takes atropine.'
Ah, I started then. She moved from the window, sat in a rocking-chair,
and turned the leaves of a book, without reading. We were silent, she
and I; I standing, looking at her, she drawing the thumb across the
leaf-edges, and beginning again, contemplatively. Then she laughed dryly
a little--a dry, mad laugh.
'Why did you start when I said that?' she asked, reading now at random.
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