d that little teacher as he loved Katrine, that
she could never rouse him as this woman did whom he believed to be an
epitome of evil, who, as she lay now in the firelight by his feet,
reminded him of the emblem of sin that crept into man's Eden. Yet it was
a pleasure--what pleasure to be near her, to touch that smooth skin! But
what was this pleasure?--was it also evil? What was this passion? His
thoughts flew onward feverishly, and then Katrine's voice struck across
them and brought him back to outer consciousness again.

"Listen," she was saying, "while I tell you all, and _then_ we can start
afresh, as you say."

Stephen put his hand over his eyes, and waited in silence. He dreaded
unspeakably what he thought he was going to hear, and with a man's moral
cowardice would have deferred her confession, slurred over and tried to
forget her wrong-doing, rather than hear and forgive it. They had
changed places since he had asked her that morning in his cabin to
confide in him.

"Well, to begin with," went on her clear, soft voice, "I drink--I like
drinking. You think it wrong to drink anything but water; I like wine
and spirits, anything that excites me, and I can drink with any man in
town. But I have never been drunk, Stephen, you understand that. Then I
like all kinds of gaiety, and like to spend all my time dancing and
laughing, and what your friend Talbot calls 'fooling.' And I gamble,"
Katrine paused a second before she said the decisive words, and then
went on rapidly, "oh, Stephen, you don't know, I haven't told you, but I
love the tables. I can sit up all night and play with the boys; I love
excitement, I love the winning and raking in the gold dust. I spend all
my nights playing; it's what I live for in this awful place."

There was silence, then Katrine's voice broke it again--

"Now you think that so wicked, I bet you don't want to marry me now."

There was a half laugh with a sad ring in it as she looked up to his
covered face. Now Stephen heard, but the words fell on his ears dully;
he was waiting in strained painful tension for what was to come. It was
true he loathed gambling as a hated vice, and but for the apprehension
that gripped his mind her confession so far would have been horrible to
him. Still it was as a Christian that he abhorred these things. What he
expected to hear he would have abhorred as a man and a lover; and the
former abhorrence is considerably milder than the latter.

"Go on," he