e. Then, after a little, he rose to go.

"I'll return to the hotel with you," I said.

Berna gave us a pathetically anxious little look. There was a red spot
on each cheek and her eyes were bright. I could see she wanted to cry.

"I'll be back in half an hour, dear," I said, while Garry gravely shook
hands with her.

We did not speak on the way to his room. When we reached it he switched
on the light and turned to me.

"Brother, who's this girl?"

"She's--she's my housekeeper. That's all I can say at present, Garry."

"Married?"

"No."

"Good God!"

Stormily he paced the floor, while I watched him with a great calm. At
last he spoke.

"Tell me about her."

"Sit down, Garry; light a cigar. We may as well talk this thing over
quietly."

"All right. Who is she?"

"Berna," I said, lighting my cigar, "is a Jewess. She was born of an
unwed mother, and reared in the midst of misery and corruption."

He stared at me. His mouth hardened; his brow contracted.

"But," I went on, "I want to say this. You remember, Garry, Mother used
to tell us of our sister who died when she was a baby. I often used to
dream of my dead sister, and in my old, imaginative days I used to think
she had never died at all, but she had grown up and was with us. How we
would have loved her, would we not, Garry? Well, I tell you this--if our
sister had grown up she could have been no sweeter, purer, gentler than
this girl of mine, this Berna."

He smiled ironically.

"Then," he said, "if she is so wonderful, why, in the name of Heaven,
haven't you married her?"

His manner towards her in the early part of the interview had hurt me,
had roused in me a certain perversity. I determined to stand by my guns.

[Illustration: "Garry," I said, "this is--this is Berna"]

"Marriage," said I, "isn't everything; often isn't anything. Love is,
and always will be, the great reality. It existed long before marriage
was ever thought of. Marriage is a good thing. It protects the wife and
the children. As a rule, it enforces constancy. But there's a higher
ideal of human companionship that is based on love alone, love so
perfect, so absolute that legal bondage insults it; love that is its own
justification. Such a love is ours."

The ironical look deepened to a sneer.

"And look you here, Garry," I went on; "I am living in Dawson in what
you would call 'shame.' Well, let me tell you, there's not ninety-nine
in a hundred legally married couples