t 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-glass
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, muffled 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 evi