consent?'

I shrugged again.

'Well, if that means consent,' he said, 'let me remind you that you have
only eight days, and all the world to do in them.'

This conversation occurred in the dining-room of Peters' house: and as
we passed through the door, I saw Clodagh gliding down the passage
outside--rapidly--away from us.

Not a word I said to her that day about Clark's invitation. Yet I asked
myself repeatedly: Did she not know of it? Had she not _listened_, and
heard?

However that was, about midnight, to my great surprise, Peters opened
his eyes, and smiled. By noon the next day, his fine vitality, which so
fitted him for an Arctic expedition, had re-asserted itself. He was then
leaning on an elbow, talking to Wilson, and except his pallor, and
strong stomach-pains, there was now hardly a trace of his late approach
to death. For the pains I prescribed some quarter-grain tablets of
sulphate of morphia, and went away.

Now, David Wilson and I never greatly loved each other, and that very
day he brought about a painful situation as between Peters and me, by
telling Peters that I had taken his place in the expedition. Peters, a
touchy fellow, at once dictated a letter of protest to Clark; and Clark
sent Peters' letter to me, marked with a big note of interrogation in
blue pencil.