r a throb of pathos. It was
like the voice of one who has given up all hope, the voice of one who
has arisen from the grave. In that cold mask of a face I could see no
glimmer of the old-time joy, the joy of the season when wild roses were
aglow. We both were silent, two pitifully cold beings, while about us
the howling bedlam of pleasure-plotters surged and seethed.

"Come upstairs where we can talk," said she. So we sat down in one of
the boxes, while a great freezing shadow seemed to fall and wrap us
around. It was so strange, this silence between us. We were like two
pale ghosts meeting in the misty gulfs beyond the grave.

"And why did you not come?" she asked.

"Come--I tried to come."

"But you did not." Her tone was measured, her face averted.

"I would have sold my soul to come. I was ill, desperately ill, nigh to
death. I was in the hospital. For two weeks I was delirious, raving of
you, trying to get to you, making myself a hundred times worse because
of you. But what could I do? No man could have been more helpless. I was
out of my mind, weak as a child, fighting for my life. That was why I
did not come."

When I began to speak she started. As I went on she drew a quick,
choking breath. Then she listened ever so intently, and when I had
finished a great change came over her. Her eyes stared glassily, her
head dropped, her hands clutched at the chair, she seemed nigh to
fainting. When she spoke her voice was like a whisper.

"And they lied to me. They told me you were too eager gold-getting to
think of me; that you were in love with some other woman out there; that
you cared no more for me. They lied to me. Well, it's too late now."

She laughed, and the once tuneful voice was harsh and grating. Still
were her eyes blank with misery. Again and again she murmured: "Too
late, too late."

Quietly I sat and watched her, yet in my heart was a vast storm of
agony. I longed to comfort her, to kiss that face so white and worn and
weariful, to bring tears to those hopeless eyes. There seemed to grow
in me a greater hunger for the girl than ever before, a longing to bring
joy to her again, to make her forget. What did it all matter? She was
still my love. I yearned for her. We both had suffered, both been
through the furnace. Surely from it would come the love that passeth
understanding. We would rear no lily walls, but out of our pain would we
build an abiding place that would outlast the tomb.

"Berna," I