Prosper took her by the shoulder and turned her over a little in the

snow. Joan opened her eyes and looked at him. It was the dumb look of

a beaten dog.

"Get up, child," he said, "and come home with me."

She struggled to her feet, he helping her; and silently, just as a

savage woman, no matter what her pain, will follow her man, so Joan

followed the track he had made by pressing the snow down triply over

her former steps. "Can you do it?" he asked once, and she nodded. She

was pale, her eyes heavy, but she was glad to be found, glad to be

saved. He saw that, and he saw a dawning confusion in her eyes. At the

end he drew her arm into his, and, when they came into the house, he

knelt and took the snowshoes from her feet, she drooping against the

wall. He put a hand on each of her shoulders and looked reproach.

"You wanted to leave me, Joan? You wanted to leave me, as much as

that?"

She shook her head from side to side, then, drawing away, she stumbled

past him into the room, dropped to the bearskin rug, and held out her

hands to the flames. "It's awful good to be back," she said, and fell

to sobbing. "I didn't think you'd be carin'--I was thinkin' only of

old things. I was homesick--me that has no home."

Her shaken voice was so wonderful a music that he stood listening with

sudden tears in his eyes.

"An' I can't ferget Pierre nor the old life, Mr. Gael, an' when I

think 't was you that killed him, why, it breaks my heart. Oh, I know

you hed to do it. I saw. An' I know I couldn't 'a' stayed with him no

more. What he did, it made me hate him--but you can't be thinkin' how

it was with Pierre an' me before that night. We--we was happy. I ust

to live with my father, Mr. Gael, an' he was an awful man, an' there

was no lovin' between us, but when I first seen Pierre lookin' up at

me, I first knowed what lovin' might be like. I just came away with

him because he asked me. He put his hand on my arm an' said, 'Will you

be comin' home with me, Joan Carver?' That was the way of it.

Somethin' inside of me said, 'Yes,' fer all I was too scairt to do

anything but look at him an' shake my head. An' the next mornin' he

was there with his horses. Oh, Mr. Gael, I can't ferget him, even for

hatin'. That brand on my shoulder, it's all healed, but my heart's so

hurted, it's so hurted. An' when I come to thinkin' of how kind an'

comfortin' you are an' what you've been a-doin' fer me, why, then, at

the same time, I can't help but thinkin' that you killed my Pierre.

You killed him. Fergive me, please; I would love you if I could, but

somethin' makes me shake away from you--because Pierre's dead."




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