She was very bright and did most of the talking. She showed a vast joy at seeing me.
"Tell me what you've been doing, dear—everything. Have you made a stake? So many have. I have prayed you would, too. Then we'll go away somewhere and forget all this. We'll go to Italy, where it's always beautiful. We'll just live for each other. Won't we, honey?"
She nestled up to me. She seemed to have lost much of her shyness. I don't know why, but I preferred my timid, shrinking Berna.
"It will take a whole lot to make me forget this," I said grimly.
"Yes, I know. Isn't it frightful? Somehow I don't seem to mind so much now. I'm getting used to it, I suppose. But at first—O, it was terrible! I thought I never could stand it. It's wonderful how we get accustomed to things, isn't it?"
"Yes," I answered bitterly.
"You know, those rough miners are good to me. I'm a queen among them, because they know I'm—all right. I've had several offers of marriage, too, really, really good ones from wealthy claim-owners."
"Yes," still more bitterly.
"Yes, young man; so you want to make a strike and take me away to Italy. Oh, how I plan and plan for us two. I don't care, my dearest, if you haven't got a cent in the world, I'm yours, always yours."
"That's all right, Berna," I said. "I'm going to make good. I've just lost a fifty-thousand dollar claim, but there's more coming up. By the first of June next I'll come to you with a bank account of six figures. You'll see, my little girl. I'm going to make this thing stick."