y a greater. There's a master key to every heart, and we poor
fools delude ourselves with the idea we are opening all the doors. We
are on sufferance, we are only understudies in the love drama, but
fortunately the star seldom appears on the scene. However, this I
know----"

I rose to my feet.

"Since the moment I set eyes on you, I loved you. Long before I ever met
you, I loved you. I was just waiting for you, waiting. At first I could
not understand, I did not know what it meant, but now I do, beyond the
peradventure of a doubt; there never was any but you, never will be any
but you. Since the beginning of time it was all planned that I should
love you. And you, how do you care?"

She stood up to hear my words. She would not let me touch her, but there
was a great light in her eyes. Then she spoke and her voice was vibrant
with passion, all indifference gone from it.

"Oh, you blind! you coward! Couldn't you see? Couldn't you feel? That
day on the scow it came to me--Love. It was such as I had never dreamed
of, rapture, ecstasy, anguish. Do you know what I wished as we went
through the rapids? I wished that it might be the end, that in such a
supreme moment we might go down clinging together, and that in death I
might hold you in my arms. Oh, if you'd only been like that afterwards,
met love open-armed with love. But, no! you slipped back to friendship.
I feel as if there were a barrier of ice between us now. I will try
never to care for you any more. Now leave me, leave me, for I never want
to see you again."

"Yes, you will, you must, you must, Berna. I'd sell my immortal soul to
win that love from you, my dearest, my dearest; I'd crawl around the
world to kiss your shadow. If you called to me I would come from the
ends of the earth, through storm and darkness, to your side. I love you
so, I love you so."

I crushed her to me, I kissed her madly, yet she was cold.

"Have you nothing more to say than fine words?" she asked.

"Marry me, marry me," I repeated.

"Now?"

Now! I hesitated again. The suddenness of it was like a cold douche. God
knows, I burned for the girl, yet somehow convention clamped me.

"Now if you wish," I faltered; "but better when we get to Dawson. Better
when I've made good up there. Give me one year, Berna, one year and
then----"

"One year!"

The sudden gleam of hope vanished from her eyes. For the third time I
was failing her, yet my cursed prudence overrode me.

"Oh, it wil