THE  TRAIL  OF  '98          495
I think I know her, too. Here, let me see—I thought so."
I had clutched her, pulled her to the light. It was Berna.
Her face was white as chalk, her eyes dilated with terror.   She trembled.   She seemed near fainting.
" I thought so."
Now that it seemed the worst was betrayed to me, I was strangely calm.
" Berna, you're faint. Let me lead you to a chair."
I made her sit down. She said no word, but looked at me with a wild pleading in her eyes. No one spoke.
There we were, the three of us: Berna faint with fear, ghastly, pitiful; I calm, yet calm with a strange, unnatural calmness, and Garry—he surprised me. He had seated himself, and with the greatest sang-froid he was lighting a cigarette.
A long tense silence.    At last I broke it.
" What have you got to say for yourself, Garry? " I asked.
It was wonderful how calm he was.
"Looks pretty bad, doesn't it, brother?" he said gravely.
" Yes, it couldn't look worse."
" Looks as if I was a pretty base, despicable specimen of a man, doesn't it? "
" Yes, about as base as a man could be."
" That's so." He rose and turned up the light of a large reading-lamp, then coming to me he looked