"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 that have formed such a sweet, love-sanctified union as we have. That girl is purest gold, a pearl of untold price. There has never been a jar in the harmony of our lives. We love each other absolutely. We trust and believe in each other. We would make any sacrifice for each other. And, I say it again, our marriage is tenfold holier than ninety-nine out of a hundred of those performed with all the pomp of surplice and sacristy."

"Oh, man! man!" he said crushingly, "what's got into you? What nonsense, what clap-trap is this? I tell you that the old way, the way that has stood for generations, is the best, and it's a sorry day I find a brother of mine talking such nonsense. I'm almost glad Mother's dead. It would surely have broken her heart to know that her son was living in sin and shame, living with a----"

"Easy now, Garry," I cautioned him. We faced each other with the table between us.

"I'm going to have my say out. I've come all this way to say it, and you've got to hear me. You're my brother. God knows I love you. I promised I'd look after you, and now I'm going to save you if I can."

"Garry," I broke in, "I'm younger than you, and I respect you; but in the last few years I've grown to see things different from the way we were taught; broader, clearer, saner, somehow. We can't always follow in the narrow path of our forefathers. We must think and act for ourselves in these days. I see no sin and shame in what I'm doing. We love each other--that is our vindication. It's a pure, white light that dims all else. If you had seen and striven and suffered as I have done, you might think as I do. But you've got your smug old-fashioned notions. You gaze at the trees so hard you can't see the forest. Yours is an ideal, too; but mine is a purer, more exalted one."

"Balderdash!" he cried. "Oh, you anger me! Look here, Athol, I came all this way to see you about this matter. It's a long way to come, but I knew my brother was needing me and I'd have gone round the world for you. You never told me anything of this girl in your letters. You were ashamed."

"I knew I could never make you understand."

"You might have tried. I'm not so dense in the understanding. No, you would not tell me, and I've had letters, warning letters. It was left to other people to tell me how you drank and gambled and squandered your money; how you were like to a madman. They told me you had settled down to live with one of the creatures, a woman who had made her living in the dance-halls, and every one knows no woman ever did that and remained straight. They warned me of the character of this girl, of your infatuation, of your callousness to public opinion. They told me how barefaced, how shameless you were. They begged me to try and save you. I would not believe it, but now I've come to see for myself, and it's all true, it's all true."

He bowed his head in emotion.

"Oh, she's good!" I cried. "If you knew her you would think so, too.

You, too, would love her."

"Heaven forbid! Boy, I must save you. I must, for the honour of the old name that's never been tarnished. I must make you come home with me."

He put both hands on my shoulders, looking commandingly into my face.

"No, no," I said, "I'll never leave her."

"It will be all right. We can pay her. It can be arranged. Think of the honour of the old name, lad."

I shook him off. "Pay!"--I laughed ironically. "Pay" in connection with the name of Berna--again I laughed.

"She's good," I said once again. "Wait a little till you know her. Don't judge her yet. Wait a little."

He saw it was of no use to waste further words on me. He sighed.

"Well, well," he said, "have it your own way. I think she's ruining you.

She's dragging you down, sapping your moral principles, lowering your standard of pure living. She must be bad, bad, or she wouldn't live with you like that. But have it your own way, boy; I'll wait and see."

CHAPTER XX

In the crystalline days that followed I did much to bring about a friendship between Garry and Berna. At first I had difficulty in dragging him to the house, but in a little while he came quite willingly. The girl, too, aided me greatly. In her sweet, shy way she did her best to win his regard, so that as the winter advanced a great change came over him. He threw off that stern manner of his as an actor throws off a part, and once again he was the dear old Garry I knew and loved.

His sunny charm returned, and with it his brilliant smile, his warm, endearing frankness. He was now twenty-eight, and if there was a handsomer man in the Northland I had yet to see him. I often envied him for his fine figure and his clean, vivid colour. It was a wonderfully expressive face that looked at you, firm and manly, and, above all, clever. You found a pleasure in the resonant sweetness of his voice. You were drawn irresistibly to the man, even as you would have been drawn to a beautiful woman. He was winning, lovable, yet back of all his charm there was that great quality of strength, of austere purpose.

He made a hit with every one, and I verily believe that half the women in the town were in love with him. However, he was quite unconscious of it, and he stalked through the streets with the gait of a young god. I knew there were some who for a smile would have followed him to the ends of the earth, but Garry was always a man's man. Never do I remember the time when he took an interest in a woman. I often thought, if women could have the man of their choice, a few handsome ones like Garry would monopolise them, while we common mortals would go wifeless. Sometimes it has seemed to me that love is but a second-hand article, and that our matings are at best only makeshifts.

I must say I tried very hard to reconcile those two. I threw them together on every opportunity, for I wanted him to understand and to love her. I felt he had but to know her to appreciate her at her true value, and, although he spoke no word to me, I was soon conscious of a vast change in him. Short of brotherly regard, he was everything that could be desired to her--cordial, friendly, charming. Once I asked Berna what she thought of him.

"I think he's splendid," she said quietly. "He's the handsomest man I've ever seen, and he's as nice as he's good-looking. In many ways you remind me of him--and yet there's a difference."

"I remind you of him--no, girl. I'm not worthy to be his valet. He's as much above me as I am above--say a siwash. He has all the virtues; I, all the faults. Sometimes I look at him and I see in him my ideal self.

He is all strength, all nobility, while I am but a commonplace mortal, full of human weaknesses. He is the self I should have been if the worst had been the best."

"Hush! you are my sweetheart," she assured me with a caress, "and the dearest in the world."

"By the way, Berna," I said, "you remember something we talked about before he came? Don't you think that now----?"

"Now----?"

"Yes."

"All right." She flashed a glad, tender look at me and left the room.

That night she was strangely elated.

Every evening Garry would drop in and talk to us. Berna would look at him as he talked and her eyes would brighten and her cheeks flush. On both of us he had a strangely buoyant effect. How happy we could be, just we three. It was splendid having near me the two I loved best on earth.

That was a memorable winter, mild and bright and buoyant. At last Spring came with gracious days of sunshine. The sleighing was glorious, but I was busy, very busy, so that I was glad to send Garry and Berna off together in a smart cutter, and see them come home with their cheeks like roses, their eyes sparkling and laughter in their voices. I never saw Berna looking so well and happy.

I was head over ears in work. In a mail just arrived I had a letter from the Prodigal, and a certain paragraph in it set me pondering. Here it was:

"You must look out for Locasto. He was in New York a week ago. He's down and out. Blood-poisoning set in in his foot after he got outside, and eventually he had to have it taken off. He's got a false mit for the one Mac sawed off. But you should see him. He's all shot to pieces with the 'hooch.' It's a fright the pace he's gone. I had an interview with him, and he raved and blasphemed horribly. Seemed to have a terrible pick at you. Seems you have copped out his best girl, the only one he ever cared a red cent for. Said he would get even with you if he swung for it. I think he's dangerous, even a madman. He is leaving for the North now, so be on your guard."

Locasto coming! I had almost forgotten his existence. Well, I no longer cared for him. I could afford to despise him. Surely he would never dare to molest us. If he did--he was a broken, discredited blackguard. I could crush him.

Coming here! He must even now be on the way. I had a vision of him speeding along that desolate trail, sitting in the sleigh wrapped in furs, and brooding, brooding. As day after day the spell of the great and gloomy land grew on his spirit, I could see the sombre eyes darken and deepen. I could see him in the road-house at night, gaunt and haggard, drinking at the bar, a desperate, degraded cripple. I could see him growing more reckless every day, every hour. He was coming back to the scene of his ruined fortunes, and God knows with what wild schemes of vengeance his heart was full. Decidedly I must beware.