A telegraphic despatch from Seattle told how a man had
struggled into Nome, frozen, bleeding and without accouterments or
companion. It was with difficulty he had kept his feet and turned
in at the first tent he came to. Indeed, he had only time to
speak his name before he fell dead. This name was what made this
despatch important to me. It was William Pfeiffer. For me there
was but one William Pfeiffer in the Klondike - my husband - and he
was dead! That was why you found me laughing. But not in mirth.
I am not so bad as that; but because I could breathe again without
feeling a clutch about my throat. I did not know till then how
nearly I had been stifled.
"We were not long in marrying after that. I was terrified at delay,
not because I feared any contradiction of the report which had given
this glorious release, but because I dreaded lest some hint of my
early folly should reach you and dim the pride with which you
regarded me. I wanted to feel myself yours so closely and so dearly
that you would not mind if any one told you that I had once cared,
or thought I had cared, for another. The week of our marriage came;
I was mad with gaiety and ecstatic with hope. Nothing had occurred
to mar my prospects. No letter from Denver - no memento from the
Klondike, no word even from Wallace, who had gone north with his
brother.
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