For all that day Prosper fled the house and went across the country,
now fording a flood of melted snow, now floundering through a drift,
now walking on springy sod, unaware of the soft spring, conscious only
of a sort of fire in his breast. He suffered and he resented his
suffering, and he would have killed his heart if, by so doing, he
could have given it peace. And all day he did not once think of Joan,
but only of the "tall child" for whom the gay cañon refuge had been
built, but who had never set her slim foot upon its threshold. Sunset
found him miles away in the foothills of a low, many-folded range
across the plain. He was dog tired, so that for very exhaustion his
brain had stopped its tormenting work. He lit a fire and sat by it,
huddled in his coat, smoking, dozing, not able really to sleep for
cold and hunger. The bright stars, flung all about the sky, mildly
regarded hum. Coyotes mourned their loneliness and hunger near and
far, and once, in the broken woods above him, a mountain lion gave its
blood-curdling scream. Prosper hated the night and its beautiful
desolation, he hated the God that had made this land. He cursed the
dawn when it came delicately, spreading a green arc of radiance across
the east. And then, as he arose stiffly, stamped out his fire, and
started slowly on his way back, he was conscious of a passionate
homesickness, not for the old life he had lost, but for his cabin, his
bright hearth, his shut-in solitude, his Joan. Very dear and real and
human she was, and her laughter had been sweet. He had shocked it to
silence, he had repulsed her comforting hands. She had been so
innocent of any desire to hurt him. He could not imagine her ever
hurting any one, this broad-browed Joan. She was so kind. And now she
must be anxious about him. She would have sat up by the fire all
night.... His eagerness for her slighted comfort gave his lagging
steps a certain vigor, the long walk back seemed very long, indeed.
Noon was hot, but he found water and by sundown he came to the cañon
trail. He wanted Joan as badly now as a hurt child wants its mother.
He came, haggard and breathless, to the door, called "Joan," came into
the warm little room and found it empty. Wen Ho, to be sure, pattered
to meet him.
"Mister Gael been gone a long time, velly long, all night. Wen Ho, he
fix bed, fix breakfast--oh, the lady? She gone out yestiddy, not come
back. She leave a letter for him, there on the table."