Then Joan did look at him with all her eyes.
"I am Pierre's wife," she said. The liquid beauty had left her voice.
It was hoarse and dry. "I am Pierre's wife and I have already been the
mother of your child."
There was a long, rigid silence. "Joan--when?--where?" Prosper's
throat clicked.
"I knew it before you left. I couldn't tell you because you were so
changed. I worked all winter. It--it was born on an awful cold March
night. I think the woman let it--made it--die. She wanted me to work
for her during the summer and she thought I would be glad if the child
didn't live. She used to say I was 'in trouble' and she'd be glad if
she could 'help me out.'... It was what I was planning to live for ...
that child."
During the heavy stillness following Joan's dreadful, brief account of
birth and death, Prosper went through a strange experience. It seemed
to him that in his soul something was born and died. Always afterwards
there was a ghost in him--the father that might have been.
"I can't talk any more," said Joan faintly. "Won't you please go?"