A log fell forward and Joan lifted her head. She had not come to an
end of Isabella's tragedy nor of her own memories, but something other
than the falling log had startled her; a light, crunching step upon
the snow.
She looked toward the window. For an instant the room was almost dark
and the white night peered in at her, its gigantic snow-peaks pressing
against the long, horizontal window panes, and in that instant she saw
a face. The fire started up again, the white night dropped away, the
face shone close a moment longer, then it too disappeared. Joan came
to her feet with pounding pulses. It had been Pierre's face, but at
the same time, the face of a stranger. He had come back five days too
soon and something terrible had happened. Surely his chancing to see
her with her book would not make him look like that. Besides, she was
not wasting oil. She had stood up, but at first she was incapable of
moving forward. For the first time in her life she knew the paralysis
of unreasoning fear. Then the door opened and Pierre came in out of
the crystal night.
"What brought you back so soon?" asked Joan.
"Too soon fer you, eh?" He strode over to the hearth where she had
lain, took up the book, struck it with his hand as though it had been
a hated face, and flung it into the fire. "I seen you through the
window," he said. "So you been happy readin' while I been away?"
"I'll get you supper. I'll light the lamp," Joan stammered.
Pierre's face was pale, his black hair lay in wet streaks on his
temples. He must have traveled at furious speed through the bitter
cold to be in such a sweat. There was a mysterious, controlled
disorder in his look and there arose from him the odor of strong
drink. But he was steady and sure in all his movements and his eyes
were deadly cool and reasonable--only it was the reasonableness of
insanity, reasonableness based on the wildest premises of unreason.
"I don't want no supper, nor no light," he said. "Firelight's enough
fer you to read parsons' books by, it's enough fer me to do what I
oughter done long afore to-night."
She stood in the middle of the small, log-walled room, arrested in the
act of lighting a match, and stared at him with troubled eyes. She was
no longer afraid. After all, strange as he looked, more strangely as
he talked, he was her Pierre, her man. The confidence of her heart had
not been seriously shaken by his coldness and his moods during this
winter. There had been times of fierce, possessive tenderness. She was
his own woman, his property; at this low counting did she rate
herself. A sane man does no injury to his own possessions. And Pierre,
of course, was sane. He was tired, angry, he had been drinking--her
ignorance, her inexperience led her to put little emphasis on the
effects of the poison sold at the town saloon. When he was warm and
fed and rested, he would be quite himself again. She went about
preparing a meal in spite of his words.