The Branding Iron Part 29

"Hus.h.!.+" said Joan; "I will tell him myself. Pierre, I left you for dead and I went away with this man, and after a while, because I thought you were dead, and because I was alone and sorrowful and weak, and because, perhaps, of what my mother was, I--I--" She fell away from Pierre, crouched against the side of the door, and wrapped the curtain round her face. "He told me you were dead--" The words came m.u.f.fled.

Pierre had let her go and turned to Prosper. His own face was a mask of rage. Prosper knew that it was the Westerner's intention to kill.

For a minute, no longer, he was a lightning channel of death. But Pierre, the Pierre shaped during the last four difficult years, turned upon his own writhing, savage soul and forced it to submit. It was as though he fought with his hands. Sweat broke out on him. At last, he stood and looked at Prosper with sane, stern eyes.

"If that's true what you hinted, if that's true what she was tryin' to tell, if it's even partly true," he said painfully, "then it was me that brought it upon her, not you--an' not herself, but me."

He turned back to Joan, drew the curtain from her face, drew down her hands, lifted her and carried her to the couch beside the fire.

There she shrank away from him, tried to push him back.

"It's true, Pierre; not that about Morena, but the rest is true. It's true. Only he told me you were dead. But you weren't--no, don't take my hands, I never did have dealings with Holliwell. Indeed, I loved only you. But you must have known me better than I knew myself. For I am bad. I am bad. I left you for dead and I went away."

He had mastered her hands, both of them in one of his, and he drew them close to his heart.

"Don't Joan! Hush, Joan! You mustn't. It was my doings, gel, all of it. Hus.h.!.+"

He bent and crushed his lips against hers, silencing her. Then she gave way and clung to him, sobbing.

After a while Pierre looked up at Prosper Gael. All the patience and the hunger and the beauty of his love possessed his face. There was simply no room in his heart for any lesser thing.

"Stranger," he said in the grave and gentle Western speech, "I'll have to ask you to leave me with my wife."

Prosper made a curious, silent gesture of self-despair and went out, feeling his way before him.

It was half an hour later when the doctor came softly to the door and held back the curtain in his hand. He did not say anything and, after a silent minute, he let fall the curtain and moved softly away. He was rea.s.sured as to the success of his experiment. He had seen Joan's face.

THE END