nts of beauty and joy, and yet there is
no praise in my heart. I have seen, I have tasted, I have tried. Ashes
and dust and bitterness are all my gain. I will try no more. It is the
shadow of the vampire wing.

So I sit in the glow of the great peat fire, tired and sad beyond
belief. Thank God! at least I am home. Everything is so little changed.
The fire lights the oak-panelled hall; the crossed claymores gleam; the
eyes in the mounted deer-heads shine glassily; rugs of fur cover the
polished floor; all is comfort, home and the haunting atmosphere of my
boyhood. Sometimes I fancy it has been a dream, the Great White Silence,
the lure of the gold-spell, the delirium of the struggle; a dream, and I
will awake to hear Garry calling me to shoot over the moor, to see dear
little Mother with her meek, sensitive mouth, and her cheeks as
delicately tinted as the leaves of a briar rose. But no! The hall is
silent. Mother has gone to her long rest. Garry sleeps under the snow.
Silence everywhere; I am alone, alone.

So I sit in the big, oak-carved chair of my forefathers, before the
great peat fire, a peak-faced drooping figure of a man with hair
untimely grey. My crutch lies on the floor by my side. My old nurse
comes up quietly to look at the fire. Her rosy, wrinkled face smiles
cheerfully, but I can see the anxiety in her blue eyes. She is afraid
for me. Maybe the doctor has told her--_something_.

No doubt my days are numbered, so I am minded to tell of it all: of the
Big Stampede, of the Treasure Trail, of the Gold-born City; of those who
followed the gold-lure into the Great White Land, of the evil that
befell them, of Garry and of Berna. Perhaps it will comfort me to tell
of these things. To-morrow I will begin; to-night, leave me to my
memories.

Berna! I spoke of her last. She rises before me now with her spirit-pale
face and her great troubleful grey eyes, a little tragic figure,
ineffably pitiful. Where are you now, little one? I have searched the
world for you. I have scanned a million faces. Day and night have I
sought, always hoping, always baffled, for, God help me, dear, I love
you. Among that mad, lusting horde you were so weak, so helpless, yet so
hungry for love.

With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows, and step
out onto the terrace. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my
face. Yet as I stand there, once more I have a sense of another land, of
imperious vastitudes, of a sile