"Else you would have prevented?" he asked, bitterly.
"Yes. I think I should have. I did not wish to give you pain—"
"Then you expected it, some time?"
"And feared it. But I had hoped . . . I . . . Vance, I did not come into the Klondike to get married. I liked you at the beginning, and I have liked you more and more,—never so much as to-day,—but—"
"But you had never looked upon me in the light of a possible husband—that is what you are trying to say."
As he spoke, he looked at her side-wise, and sharply; and when her eyes met his with the same old frankness, the thought of losing her maddened him.
"But I have," she answered at once. "I have looked upon you in that light, but somehow it was not convincing. Why, I do not know. There was so much I found to like in you, so much—"
He tried to stop her with a dissenting gesture, but she went on.
"So much to admire. There was all the warmth of friendship, and closer friendship,—a growing camaraderie, in fact; but nothing more. Though I did not wish more, I should have welcomed it had it come."
"As one welcomes the unwelcome guest."