Pierre went white and dumb; the chance shot had inflamed his wound.
He strapped on his snowshoes and bade a grim good-bye to Joan, after
the man had left. "Don't you be wastin' oil while I'm away," he told
her sharply, standing in the doorway, his head level with the steep
wall of snow behind him, and he gave her a threatening look so that
the tenderness in her heart was frozen.
After he had gone, "Pierre, say a real good-bye, say good-bye," she
whispered. Her face cramped and tears came.
She heard his steps lightly crunching across the hard, bright surface
of the snow, they entered into the terrible frozen silence. Then she
turned from the door, dried her eyes with her sleeve like a little
village girl, and ran across the room to a certain shelf. Pierre would
be gone a week. She would not waste oil, but she would read. It was
with the appetite of a starved creature that she fell upon her books.