A Girl of the Klondike Part 10

She felt in a very serious mood as she made her cup of coffee and cooked herself a plate of bacon, and then sat down in the red glow of her well-tended hearth to her solitary meal.

"Birds of a feather!" that hateful sentence echoed round her, until the silent walls themselves seemed taunting her. Was she not, after all, really akin to that old woman, and might she not some day end like her?

What was all her own drinking and card-playing and knocking about in the saloons to end in? She s.h.i.+vered, and threw a frightened glance round her. This girl, who would have laughed all sermons, advice, and admonitions scornfully aside, was almost startled now into a sudden reformation by the chance object-lesson of this afternoon. She could not forget it, and in the silence the whole scene rose up vividly before her. She began to long for Stephen to come and break the silence, and glanced impatiently at the clock many times. He was coming in to town that night, she knew. It was a relief such as she had never experienced when at last he arrived, and she had not her own company only any longer.

She was unusually silent all the evening. Stephen did not try to force her into conversation; he was content to sit on the opposite side of the hearth and let his eyes rest upon her in silence. She was paler, he thought, as he watched the orange light from the flames play over the oval face and throw up its regular lines. She was sitting sideways to him, gazing absently into the heart of the glowing coals, and her shadow, formed by the lamp between her and Stephen, fell strongly and clearly outlined upon the opposite wall. Stephen sat in his corner and gazed at it through half-closed eyes. He had been working hard all day, and in the keen, biting air; the warmth and the rest were grateful to him. The silence in the room had lasted so long that he began to feel drowsy under the influence of this quiet warmth. He watched the shadow sleepily, and dreamy fancies floated across his brain. The clean-cut, delicate profile was magnified to colossal proportions on the blank wall. So it seemed to Stephen that beautiful presence would dominate his life, fill in completely the blank of his colourless existence, as the large shadow filled the wall. Then, as his gaze followed its outlines, he saw what his eyes had not found before: a huge upright line of shade, formed by her chair back, ran up beside and mingling with the other lines. It seemed to curve over towards her shoulder, and then a few seconds more, and to Stephen's drowsy gaze, the harsh line expanded into a hideous grotesque figure. Out of those few shades upon the wall there leaped a picture to his eyes: the girl, and at her side, bending over her, a hideous devil, a strange vampire, hovering nearer or farther, in blacker or lighter shades, as the flames in the fire rose and fell.

Stephen watched in a fascinated stupor, and then suddenly, as the light died down in the grate and the shade leaped out nearer and blacker, he started to his feet with a sudden exclamation.

The girl started too, and looked up. "What is it?" she asked.

Stephen pointed to the wall. Katrine turned, the blaze sprang up on the hearth, the shadows were gone, the illusion vanished.

"What is it?" she said again, wonderingly.

"Oh, nothing--a hideous shape on the wall," stammered Stephen. "I was watching your shadow, and another seemed to come up and threaten it.

Imagination, I suppose--perhaps I had fallen into a dream," he added hurriedly, fearing she would laugh at him.

But Katrine did not laugh: she looked at him gravely and in silence. In her mind she was pondering a question, hesitating, half fearing to speak to him, half impelled to, and half held back, and the equal opposite forces acting on her mind kept her silent.

Stephen, unused to her present mood, felt perhaps she was annoyed or wearied, and drew out his watch. It was past ten.

"I will say good-night," he said, rising.

Katrine got up too. Her face paled yet more, her bosom rose and fell quickly. "Take me away from here," she said abruptly and suddenly.

She had been thinking all the evening how she would approach the subject with him, and then at last his leave-taking had startled away all her circuitous phrases and left her only the crudest words at her command to express her meaning.

Stephen was startled and confused, but his voice was very tender as he took her hand in his and said, "I don't understand, dear; what do you mean?"

He felt her hand tremble in his. She looked up at him appealingly. Her eyes seemed frightened and uncertain. She was more womanly at this moment than she had ever been. To Stephen she was infinitely more fascinating than she had ever been. Accustomed to her bright, fearless independence, admire that as he might, in this weakness, whatever its cause, she was irresistible.

"Well, I mean," she said, speaking nervously, but with an effort to control her excitement, "the other day you spoke of our being married, and I said I couldn't stand a quiet life. Stephen, I will marry you now, and go anywhere with you. I will be content with any life, any monotony--only take me from here at once! I loathe this place, this life." She stopped suddenly, and a wave of crimson blood swept over the white face. "I want to be taken away," she repeated.

Stephen looked at her a moment in silence, with a sense of apprehension and alarm. He could not do as she asked; he was not free--his claim held him.

"I don't know quite what you mean," he said, a little stiffly, though he felt he did know. "It would be quite impossible for me to go away now; my whole heart's in the work, and I've sunk all I had in it."

"Yes; and your soul too," said Katrine suddenly, looking at him with s.h.i.+ning eyes and a calm face. "You're a slave now to your gold, the same as we all are here--a community of slaves," and she laughed.

Stephen grew red, and looked confused, alarmed, and angry, all at the same time.

"n.o.body would go now," he said, remonstratingly, "and leave ground like that. It would be insanity. Ask Talbot, ask anybody if they would."

"Talbot!" repeated Katrine, scornfully; "he's the worst slave of all; but then he never preached about his soul, and wanting to reform people."

"No one can reform you if you won't reform yourself," replied Stephen, coldly; and there he spoke the truth.

"Who was it who has put in our prayer, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil'? Here I live in temptation: I am always thrown into evil. If I were not--" Her voice was very quiet, and had a strange pathetic note in it. It ceased, and then there was silence.

Stephen felt as if a hand were laid on his lips and crushed down the voice that kept struggling from his heart. A second more, and then the girl laughed suddenly.

"Oh, I was stupid! I did not know what I was saying, did not mean it anyway. It's quite right for you to stick to your claim and the idea you started with, and so on. You will make a great success if you do, and that is all you want!"

Her tone was jesting and cynical as ever now--the usual hardness had come back to her face. The moment of submission, of confidence, of repentance, had pa.s.sed--a moment when she could have been moved and won to any life he wished, and he had lost it. He felt it. Yet how could he have done otherwise?

"Forget what I said--quite," she added; "and go now. It's getting late, and I want to get down to the saloons."

A thrill of horror went through Stephen, as she knew it would. He gazed at her blankly with a horrible feeling, as if he were murdering somebody, clutching at his heart.

"What are you waiting for?" she said, impatiently. "Why don't you hurry back to your claim?"

"Katrine ... I--" he stammered, staring at her, but even as he looked a great wall of gold seemed to rise between them and shut her from him.

"Forgive me," he muttered brokenly; "I can't give it up now."

"Good-night," said Katrine, and he turned and fumbled for the door handle and went out.

When he was gone Katrine turned to her small square of looking-gla.s.s that hung beneath the lamp on the wall.

"What a fool I was to-night!" she said, looking at the sweet reflection and smiling lips.

A few minutes after Stephen had gone, a slight figure, m.u.f.fled up to the eyes, slipped out of No. 13 and hurried with quick steps down the uneven footway of Good Luck Row.

That night Stephen climbed to his cabin with his head on fire and a singing in his ears. A terrific struggle was going on in his breast. He felt the path of duty was clear to him now, and equally that he did not want to follow it. He had tried to shut his eyes to it; tried to believe that it was not clear, that he did not know what was right or necessary to do, and therefore that he might be excused if he did not do it, but he could close his eyes no longer. They had been dragged open to-night, and he could not wilfully close them again. As he strode up the narrow little snow path leading to his cabin he felt that he knew his duty, and he groaned out aloud in the silent icy night.

To leave now meant to endanger, perhaps to sacrifice, the million dollars that he felt in a month or two he could take out of his claim; and to stay meant to endanger, perhaps to sacrifice, a human soul! A million dollars, a human soul! These two ideas possessed him. A million dollars, a human soul! the two thoughts rang alternately through his brain until it seemed as if voices were crying them out upon the soundless air. According to his religion, spirits combated for the soul of man, and it seemed to Stephen that night as he mounted the solitary path under the far-seeing eyes of the frosty stars above him, that spirits really fought around him, good and evil, for the victory. "A million dollars!" shouted the evil ones, "do not throw them away." "A human soul!" wailed the others, "do not let it fall into evil." His sensitive, excitable mind trembled before the crisis. His own soul shuddered and sickened, for he seemed to see the hosts of greed of gold, and they were stronger than the hosts of light. And Stephen himself now was badly equipped for the conflict. He felt and recognised with dismay he had not the strength and the fervour now that had brought him through former battles. He was as a warrior that has fallen asleep and awakened to find his arms grown rusty while he has been sleeping.

Gradually for the last six months the l.u.s.t for gold had been eating into his spirituality and destroying it. You cannot serve G.o.d and mammon: had he not entered into the services of mammon, and been held there by the rich rewards?

He thought of the rich pans he had been getting out. There was no claim like his in the camp. There was no man more envied nor considered more lucky than he. Yes, mammon had paid him well in the six months he had served it, showered upon him more than G.o.d had done in six-and-twenty years; and here was G.o.d's gift, a human soul, a sweet human life, he could save and make his own--and Stephen groaned again, for he felt that the gold was dearer to him. How could he have so changed, he wondered.

A year ago he would have laughed at the idea of a million dollars being a bribe for him to sin. He looked into his heart now and found there was nothing there but a pa.s.sion for gold, gold! It was a yellow rust that had eaten into his Christian's sword.

Then his thoughts strayed to the girl he had just left, and her bright fresh face seemed to sway before him as he walked. His excited fancy painted it upon the snow banks at his side. She was so young, she seemed so fresh and lovely, it was impossible to think of her as tainted already with vice and sin. It was only if she were kept in this snow-bound prison, this mournful land of darkness and suffering, where, as she said, she had no place nor aim, that she would fall as those bright meteors were falling now far in the distant darkness. He could be her deliverer, her saviour, if--if he could.

In the icy cold of that arctic night, great drops of sweat broke out hotly on Stephen's forehead as his brain was wrenched to and fro in the struggle. He tried to bribe even himself, tried to let his thoughts dwell on his pa.s.sion for the girl, tried to think of the mere human sweetness that would go hand in hand with his victory over evil. If he won that bright clean soul for G.o.d, would he not also win that loved human form for himself? But even the voice of pa.s.sion was drowned in the clamour of the greater greed.

The next morning, as soon as it was light, Stephen went out to his claims. None of his men had come up to work yet. Stephen stood and looked over the stretch of ground beneath which he believed his fortunes lay. A light covering of snow had fallen on it during the night and lay about a foot deep in one unbroken sheet, not even the mark of a bird's foot disturbed its blank evenness: the claims looked very cold and drear in the dull dusky grey light of the dawn under that leaden sky.

But Stephen's heart beat quickly as he gazed upon them. What did it matter that cold, dreary, surface, when the gold lay glowing underneath!

Stephen felt as only a man of his sensitive conscience could feel his defeat of the previous night. His heart, all his better nature was crushed under a sickening load of mortification, and he sought desperately to find relief and justification for himself in contemplating the treasure for whose sake he had accepted it. As in other circ.u.mstances a man would solace himself for all sacrifices by gazing on the face of a mistress for whom he had relinquished worldly ambitions, and find excuses for himself in her beauty, telling himself a hundred times she was worth it all; so Stephen now gazed upon his claims, for which he had given up his scruples, his principles, his conscience, and his G.o.d, and tried to hug to himself the comfort that they were worth it. After a few seconds he tramped across the frozen snow to the line marked out by the banks of gravel where they had been at work the previous day.

That evening he could not stay in his cabin, he felt restless and ill at ease. A nervous sense of anxiety hung over him. He seemed to himself to be expecting some misfortune. His nerves, weakened by the lonely life he had been living for the past months, and exhausted by the sleepless hours of the previous night, kept presenting picture after picture of possible ills. He looked over both his revolvers, to make sure they were in good order for defence if he were attacked that night. Then he drew his fur cap tightly down on his forehead and went out. The stillness of his own cabin and the clamour of his own thoughts were unbearable. The night was still and starlit, the air keen and thin as a knife-blade.

Stephen strode along the narrow frosty path, and took the road down into the town. On his way he pa.s.sed Talbot's cabin. It was lighted up. The little window made a square of yellow light in the darkness; the blind over it was drawn only half-way down. Stephen stepped up over the bank of frosted snow and looked in. The great fire lighted up the whole of the small interior, and threw its red light up to the cross logs in the roof. In the centre of the room, at a table. Talbot sat working. There were some sheets of paper before him, and he held a pen in his hand with which he was checking off some figures. His face was turned to the window; it looked pale and tired, but there was a curious expression of extreme tranquillity upon it--a settled, serene patience that struck the onlooker. He sat there working on steadily, motionless, calm as a figure in stone; and poor Stephen, torn in the struggle of his desires, slipping into the cold slough of self-condemnation, and burnt with the fever of greed, groaned aloud as he stood outside. Then he turned from the window and plunged back through the snow to the path that led to the town. He wanted to see Katrine, and yet he hated the thought of facing her after their parting of last night. What must she think of him? With her quick mental perceptions she would have seen through and through his miserable mind; seen that the gold had got hold of him, held him now, and that his boasted religion had no power against it. No, he thought, he could not face her--he was still some distance from the town; then as he drew nearer, the unappeasable desire to see her and hear her fresh bright voice came over him. When he reached Good Luck Row he went straight to No. 13. He might have saved himself the trouble of his decisions. Katrine had decided for him whether he should see her that night or not. The window was dark; he tried the door, it was fastened; she was evidently not there. A chill ran over Stephen from head to foot, and then he recognized how much he had really wanted to see her. He stood outside the door a long time; the row was quiet, there were few pa.s.sers. He waited, hoping to see her come up each minute--perhaps she had only gone out on some errand; but the minutes pa.s.sed and he grew cold standing there, still she did not come. At last Stephen moved away from the door and wandered disconsolately down the row. He went on mechanically, not heeding where his footsteps took him, and found suddenly that he had reached the main street down by the river. There was no darkness nor quiet here, all the stores had their windows wide open, and the light from them poured out upon the black slippery ma.s.s of ice and melted snow that lay over the frozen ground. The saloons were in full blast, brilliantly lighted and filled with noisy crowds of miners.

The dance halls, of which there were some dozen along the street, seemed doing a good business. A shooting gallery that had been fixed up in a tent was not only filled inside, but a crowd of men and some women were gathered round the tent entrance, pus.h.i.+ng and pressing each other in their efforts to get in; the glare from the flaming lights inside fell on their faces, and Stephen glanced eagerly over them to see if Katrine was amongst them. He pa.s.sed on, disappointed. There was another tent a little farther on, where a cheap band was playing, and a board outside announced in pen-and-ink characters the attraction of a "Catherine Wheel Dance." The crowd here was even larger, and lights were fixed outside flaring merrily in the frosty air. Stephen walked on, past the stores and warehouses, past the noisy crowded saloons, past the brilliant dance halls and the variety show tents. It was to him all a hideous, tawdry, glaring mockery of merriment; and on the other side of him was the sullen blackness of the frozen river. He walked on until he had outwalked the town front, outwalked the straggling tents, till he had left the noise, and light, and laughter behind him. When he glanced round he saw he had nothing but the river and a waste of darkness beside him. There was an old log in his path; he sat down upon it and looked back to the mist of light that hung over the town, then his gaze wandered back disconsolately and rested on the ice-bound river.

Katrine had pa.s.sed that day wretchedly too. She had been down idling in one of the saloons through the afternoon, but the old resorts seemed to have lost their charm. The old pleasure had gone, and the stimulus would not come back. The cards looked greasy and dirty and revolted her, and the drink seemed to turn to carbolic acid in her mouth. She left at last, and went home to her lonely cabin and flung herself down in the dark in the chimney corner and tried to sleep, but horrible faces danced before her, and women with grey hair and wrinkles, with her own face, stared at her from the walls.

She was still lying face downwards on the skins, half dozing now after that long conflict with horrible visions, when a light and very timid tap came on the door outside. She got up and went straight to it; her face was flushed and tear-stained, and her hair ruffled and in disorder, but she never thought to go first to the little square mirror that hung in the corner to improve her appearance before admitting visitors. As she threw open the door, the stream of hot light showed Stephen upon the threshold white as a spectre, chilled almost to death by his vigil at the river, with a strained smile on his lips and a great hunger in his eyes. His conscience reproached him: he knew he had not come bravely with his hands full of the sacrifice, having conquered himself, and ready to lay down all for her sake; but like a coward, still in the thrall of his money-l.u.s.t and yet longing to attain her too, unable to give her up. He knew all this, and stood timidly as the friendless dogs will gaze through an open hut-door, wistfully, expecting to be driven away with blows; but Katrine met him with neither harsh words nor looks, she just simply put out both her warm hands and drew him in over the threshold. The welcome, the smile, the warm touch overcame him.

"Katrine," he muttered suddenly, as she closed the door and barred it, "if I--if--I gave--up," and then the words died, strangled in his throat. Katrine held up her hand.