He did not care to risk a second look. He crept away and fled into the

windy dusk. He traveled with the wind like a blown rag, and, stopping

only for a few hours' rest at the ranger station, made the journey

home by morning of the second day. And on the journey he definitely

made up his mind concerning Joan.

Prosper Gael was a man of deliberate, though passionate, imagination.

He did not often act upon impulse, though his actions were often those

attempted only by passion-driven or impulsive folk. Prosper could

never plead thoughtlessness. He justified carefully his every action

to himself. Those were cold, dark hours of deliberation as he let the

wind drive him across the desolate land. When the wind dropped and a

splendid, still dawn swept up into the clean sky, he was at peace with

his own mind and climbed up the mountain trail with a half-smile on

his face.

In the dawn, awake on her pillows, Joan was listening for him, and at

the sound of his webs she sat up, pale to her lips. She did not know

what she feared, but she was filled with dread. The restful stupor

that had followed her storm of grief had spent itself and she was

suffering again--waves of longing for Pierre, of hatred for him,

alternately submerged her. All these bleak, gray hours of wind during

which Wen Ho had pattered in and out with meals, with wood for her

stove, with little questions as to her comfort, she had suffered as

people suffer in a dream; a restless misery like the misery of the

pine branches that leaped up and down before her window. The stillness

of the dawn, with its sound of nearing steps, gave her a sickness of

heart and brain, so that when Prosper came softly in at her door she

saw him through a mist. He moved quickly to her side, knelt by her,

took her hands. His touch at all times had a tingling charge of

vitality and will.

"He has been cared for, Joan," said Prosper. "Some friend of his came

and did all that was left to be done."

"Some friend?" In the pale, delicately expanding light Joan's face

gleamed between its black coils of hair with eyes like enchanted

tarns. In fact they had been haunted during his absence by images to

shake her soul. Prosper could see in them reflections of those terrors

that had been tormenting her. His touch pressed reassurance upon her,

his eyes, his voice.

"My poor child! My dear! I'm glad I am back to take care of you! Cry.

Let me comfort you. He has been cared for. He is not lying there

alone. He is dead. Let's forgive him, Joan." He shook her hands a

little, urgently, and a most painful memory of Pierre's beseeching

grasp came upon Joan.




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