"Berna," I said, "it is not too late."

There was a desperate bitterness in her face. "Yes, yes, it is. You do not understand. You--it's all right for you, you are blameless; but I----"

"You too are blameless, dear. We have both been miserably duped. Never mind, Berna, we will forget all. I love you, Oh how much I never can tell you, girl! Come, let us forget and go away and be happy."

It seemed as if my every word was like a stab to her. The sweet face was tragically wretched.

"Oh no," she answered, "it can never be. You think it can, but it can't.

You could not forget. I could not forget. We would both be thinking; always, always torturing each other. To you the thought would be like a knife thrust, and the more you loved me the deeper would pierce its blade. And I, too, can you not realise how fearfully I would look at you, always knowing you were thinking of THAT, and what an agony it would be to me to watch your agony? Our home would be a haunted one, a place of ghosts. Never again can there be joy between you and me. It's too late, too late!"

She was choking back the sobs now, but still the tears did not come.

"Berna," I said gently, "I think I could forget. Please give me a chance to prove it. Other men have forgotten. I know it was not your fault. I know that spiritually you are the same pure girl you were before. You are an angel, dear; my angel."

"No, I was not to blame. When you failed to come I grew desperate. When I wrote you and still you failed to come I was almost distracted. Night and day he was persecuting me. The others gave me no peace. If ever a poor girl was hounded to dishonour I was. Yet I had made up my mind to die rather than yield. Oh, it's too horrible."

She shuddered.

"Never mind, dear, don't tell me about it."

"When I awoke to life sick, sick for many days, I wanted to die, but I could not. There seemed to be nothing for it but to stay on there. I was so weak, so ill, so indifferent to everything that it did not seem to matter. That was where I made my mistake. I should have killed myself.

Oh, there's something in us all that makes us cling to life in spite of shame! But I would never let him come near me again. You believe me, don't you?"

"I believe you."

"And though, when he went away, I've gone into this life, there's never been any one else. I've danced with them, laughed with them, but that's all. You believe me?"

"Yes, dear."

"Thank God for that! And now we must say good-bye."

"_Good-bye?_"

"I said--good-bye. I would not spoil your life. You know how proud I am, how sensitive. I would not give you such as I. Once I would have given myself to you gladly, but now--please go away."

"Impossible."

"No, the other is impossible. You don't know what these things mean to a woman. Leave me, please."

"Leave you--to what?"

"To death, ruin--I don't know what. If I'm strong enough I will die. If I am weak I will sink in the mire. Oh, and I am only a girl too, a young girl!"

"Berna, will you marry me?"

"No! No! No!"

"Berna, I will never leave you. Here I tell you frankly, plainly, I don't know whether or not you still love me--you haven't said a word to show it--but I know I love you, and I will love you as long as life lasts. I will never leave you. Listen to me, dear: let us go away, far, far away. You will forget, I will forget. It will never be the same, but perhaps it will be better, greater than before. Come with me, O my love!

Have pity on me, Berna, have pity. Marry me. Be my wife."

She merely shook her head, sitting there cold as a stone.

"Then," I said, "if you call yourself dishonoured, I too will become dishonoured. If you choose to sink in the mire, I too will sink. We will go down together, you and I. Oh, I would rather sink with you, dear, than rise with the angels. You have chosen--well, I too have chosen. We stand on the edge of the vortex, now will we plunge down. You will see me steep myself in shame, then when I am a hundred shades blacker than you can ever hope to be, my angel, you will stoop and pity me. Oh, I don't care any more. I've played the fool too long; now I'll play the devil, and you'll stand by and watch me. Sometimes it's nice to make those we love suffer, isn't it? I would break my arm to make you feel sorry for me. But now you'll see me in the vortex. We'll go down together, dear. Hand in hand hell-ward we'll go down, we'll go down."

She was looking at me in a frightened way. A madness seemed to have gotten into me.

"Berna, you're on the dance-halls. You're at the mercy of the vilest wretch that's got an ounce of gold in his filthy poke. They can buy you as they buy white flesh everywhere on earth. You must dance with them, drink with them, go away with them. Berna, I can buy you. Come, dance with me, drink with me. We'll live, live. We'll eat, drink and be merry.

On with the dance! Oh, for the joy of life! Since you'll not be my love you'll be my light-of-love. Come, Berna, come!"

I paused. With her head lying on the cushioned edge of the box she was crying. The plush was streaky with her tears.

"Will you come?" I asked again.

She did not move.

"Then," said I, "there are others, and I have money, lots of it. I can buy them. I am going down into the vortex. Look on and watch me."

I left her crying.

CHAPTER VI

It is with shame I write the following pages. Would I could blot them out of my life. To this day there must be many who remember my meteoric career in the firmament of fast life. It did not last long, but in less than a week I managed to squander a small fortune.

Those were the days when Dawson might fitly have been called the dissolute. It was the regime of the dance-hall girl, and the taint of the tenderloin was over the town. So far there were few decent women to be seen on the streets. Respectable homes were being established, but even there social evils were discussed with an astonishing frankness and indifference. In the best society men were welcomed who were known to be living in open infamy. A general callousness to social corruption prevailed.

For Dawson was at this time the Mecca of the gambler and the courtesan.

Of its population probably two-thirds began their day when most people finished it. It was only towards nightfall that the town completely roused up, that the fever of pleasure providing began. Nearly every one seemed to be affected by the spirit of degeneracy. On the faces of many of the business men could be seen the stamp of the pace they were going.

Cases in Court had to be adjourned because of the debauches of lawyers.

Bank tellers stepped into their cages sleepless from all-night orgies.

Government officials lived openly with wanton women. High and low were attainted by the corruption. In those days of headstrong excitement, of sudden fortune, of money to be had almost for the picking up, when the gold-camp was a reservoir into which poured by a thousand channels the treasure of the valley, few were those among the men who kept a steady head, whose private records were pure and blameless.

No town of its size has ever broken up more homes. Men in the intoxication of fast-won wealth in that far-away land gave way to excesses of every kind. Fathers of families paraded the streets arm in arm with demi-mondaines. To be seen talking to a loose woman was unworthy of comment, not to have a mistress was not to be in the swim.

Words cannot express the infinite and general degradation. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate it. That teeming town at the mouth of the Klondike set a pace in libertinism that has never been equalled.

I would divide its population into three classes: the sporting fraternity, whose business it was to despoil and betray; the business men, drawn more or less into the vortex of dissipation; the miners from the creeks, the Man with the Poke, here to-day, gone, to-morrow, and of them all the most worthy of respect. He was the prop and mainstay of the town. It was like a vast trap set to catch him. He would "blow in"

brimming with health and high spirits; for a time he would "get into the game;" sooner or later he would cut loose and "hit the high places"; then, at last, beggared and broken, he would crawl back in shame and sorrow to the claim. O, that grey city! could it ever tell its woes and sorrows the great, white stars above would melt into compassionate tears.

Ah well, to the devil with all moralising! A short life and a merry one.

Switch on the lights! Ring up the curtain! On with the play!

In the casino a crowd is gathering round the roulette wheel. Three-deep they stand. A woman rushes out from the dance-hall and pushes her way through the throng. She is very young, very fair and redundant of life.

A man jostles her. From frank blue eyes she flashes a look at him, and from lips sweet as those of a child there comes the remonstrance: "Curse you; take care."