"It doesn't make much difference." The man spoke quietly, just as she might have expected him to speak in such a moment as this. "Oh, Virginia--we've fought so hard--it's bitter to lose now. You see, don't you--you couldn't walk with that wound--you don't know the way, so I could walk and pull you on the sled--and Harold is gone. He won't show us the way or help us now. We haven't any food here--the grizzly has been eaten by wolves. One of us blind and one of us wounded--you see--what chance we've got against the North. If we had the grizzly flesh, we could stay here till my sight returned--and still, perhaps, get you out in time to save you from the injury. If you knew the way to the settlements, I might haul you on the sled--you guiding me--and take a chance of running into some meat on the way down. But none of those things are true." "Then what"--the girl spoke breathlessly--"does it mean?" "It means death--that's all it means." There was no sentimentality, no tremor in his voice now. He was looking his fate in the face; he knew he could not spare the girl by keeping the truth from her. "Death as sure as we're here--from hunger and your wound--if Harold or the cold doesn't get us first. We've been cheated, Virginia. We've played with a crooked dealer. I don't care on my own account----" "Then don't care on mine, either." All at once her hand went up and caressed his face. "Hold me, Bill, won't you?" she asked. "Hold me in your arms." She asked it simply, like a little child. He shifted his position, then lifted her so that her breast was against his, his arms around her, her soft hair against his shoulder. The candle, dropped from his hand, was extinguished. The cold deepened outside the cabin. The white, icy moon rode in the sky. The man's arms tightened around her. He lowered his lips close to hers. There in the shadow of death her breast pressed to his, the locks of iron that held his heart's secret were shattered, the veil of his temple was rent. "Virginia," he asked his voice throbbing, "do you want me to tell you something--the truest thing in all my life? I thought I could keep it from you, but I can't. I can't keep it any more----" Her arm went up and encircled his neck, and she drew his head down to hers. "Yes, Bill," she told him, "I want you to tell me. I think I know what it is." "I love you. That's it; it never was and it never can be anything else." The words, long pent-up, poured from his lips in a flood. "Virginia, I love you, love you, love you--my little girl, my little, little girl----" She drew his head down and down until her own lips halted the flow of his words. "And I love you, Bill," she told him. "No one but you."