The Alaskan by James Oliver Curwood

entered, was Mary Standish. She came forward to meet him, and he heard a whisper from Nawadlook, and saw Keok follow her swiftly through the door into the other room.
    Mary Standish held out her hands to him a little blindly, and the tremble in her throat and the look in her eyes betrayed the struggle she was making to keep from breaking down and crying out in gladness at his coming. It was that look that sent a flood of joy into his heart, even when he saw the torture and hopelessness behind it. He held her hands close, and into her eyes he smiled in such a way that he saw them widen, as if she almost disbelieved; and then she drew in a sudden quick breath, and her fingers clung to him. It was as if the hope that had deserted her came in an instant into her face again. He was not excited. He was not even perturbed, now that he saw that light in her eyes and knew she was safe. But his love was there. She saw it and felt the force of it behind the deadly calmness with which he was smiling at her. She gave a little sob, so low it was scarcely more than a broken breath; a little cry that came of wonder-understanding-and unspeakable faith in this man who was smiling at her so confidently in the face of the tragedy that had come to destroy her.
    "Rossland is in your cabin," she whispered. "And John Graham is back there-somewhere-coming this way. Rossland says that if I don't go to him of my own free will-"
    He felt the shudder that ran through her.
    "I understand the rest," he said. They stood silent for a moment. The gray-cheeked thrush was singing on the roof. Then, as if she had been a child, he took her face between his hands and bent her head back a little, so that he was looking straight into her eyes, and so near that he could feel the sweet warmth of her breath.
    "You didn't make a mistake the day I went away?" he asked. "You-love me?"
    "Yes."
    For a moment longer he looked into her eyes. Then he stood back from her. Even Keok and Nawadlook heard his laugh. It was strange, they thought-Keok with her knife, and Nawadlook with her gun-for the bird was singing, and Alan Holt was laughing, and Mary Standish was very still.
    Another moment later, from where he sat cross-legged at the little window in the attic, keeping his unsleeping vigil with a rifle across his knees, old Sokwenna saw his master walk across the open, and something in the manner of his going brought back a vision of another day long ago when Ghost Kloof had rung with the cries of battle, and the hands now gnarled and twisted with age had played their part in the heroic stand of his people against the oppressors from the farther north.
    Then he saw Alan go into the cabin where Rossland was, and softly his fingers drummed upon the ancient tom-tom which lay at his side. His eyes fixed themselves upon the distant mountains, and under his breath he mumbled the old chant of battle, dead and forgotten except in Sokwenna's brain, and after that his eyes closed, and again the vision grew out of darkness like a picture for him, a vision of twisting trails and of fighting men gathering with their faces set for war.
    * * *
    For a Space they stood apart, and in the radiant loveliness of Mary Standish's face and in Alan's quiet and unimpassioned attitude were neither shame nor regret. In a moment they had swept aside the barrier which convention had raised against them, and now they felt the inevitable thrill of joy and triumph, and not the humiliating embarrassment of dishonor. They made no effort to draw a curtain upon their happiness, or to hide the swift heart-beat of it from each other. It had happened, and they were glad. Yet they stood apart, and something pressed upon Alan the inviolableness of the little freedom of space between them, of its sacredness to Mary Standish, and darker and deeper grew the glory of pride and faith that lay with the love in her eyes when he did not cross it. He reached out his hand, and freely she gave him her own. Lips blushing with his