"You are so different, so dreadfully calm. You frighten me. I feel you have something terrible planned all the while. But whatever you do, don't do anything rash. Don't get excited--" "I don't get excited any more," he interrupted. "Not since you went away." "You have improved--remarkably," she retorted. He smiled acknowledgment. "While I am thinking about what I shall do, I'll tell you what you will have to do--tell Mr.--er--Haythorne who I am. It may make our stay in this cabin more--may I say, sociable?" "Why have you followed me into this frightful country?" she asked irrelevantly. "Don't think I came here looking for you, Theresa. Your vanity shall not be tickled by any such misapprehension. Our meeting is wholly fortuitous. I broke with the life academic and I had to go somewhere. To be honest, I came into the Klondike because I thought it the place you were least liable to be in." There was a fumbling at the latch, then the door swung in and Haythorne entered with an armful of firewood. At the first warning, Theresa began casually to clear away the dishes. Haythorne went out again after more wood. "Why didn't you introduce us?" Messner queried. "I'll tell him," she replied, with a toss of her head. "Don't think I'm afraid." "I never knew you to be afraid, very much, of anything." "And I'm not afraid of confession, either," she said, with softening face and voice. "In your case, I fear, confession is exploitation by indirection, profit-making by ruse, self-aggrandizement at the expense of God." "Don't be literary," she pouted, with growing tenderness. "I never did like epigrammatic discussion. Besides, I'm not afraid to ask you to forgive me." "There is nothing to forgive, Theresa. I really should thank you. True, at first I suffered; and then, with all the graciousness of spring, it dawned upon me that I was happy, very happy. It was a most amazing discovery." "But what if I should return to you?" she asked. "I should" (he looked at her whimsically), "be greatly perturbed." "I am your wife. You know you have never got a divorce." "I see," he meditated. "I have been careless. It will be one of the first things I attend to." She came over to his side, resting her hand on his arm. "You don't want me, John?" Her voice was soft and caressing, her hand rested like a lure. "If I told you I had made a mistake? If I told you that I was very unhappy?--and I am. And I did make a mistake." Fear began to grow on Messner. He felt himself wilting under the lightly laid hand. The situation was slipping away from him, all his beautiful calmness was going. She looked at him with melting eyes, and he, too, seemed all dew and melting. He felt himself on the edge of an abyss, powerless to withstand the force that was drawing him over. "I am coming back to you, John. I am coming back to-day ... now."