Perrin ground his teeth.
"Damn that brute! He's not fit for hell itself."
She drew a long breath.
"Listen, Perrin, I've not finished! I began to cross the rocks and found myself on the causeway at last, but I was deep in water. The horrible waves, like black walls, was all around me. The wind pushed me on every side. The snow was falling thicker and thicker. But at last, at last, I was to Lihou. I climbed the beach, ran across the grass, and, pushing open a door in the wall of the garden—we all know the farm well, eh, Perrin? I went up the steps to the house. I opened the door. The house was like ice. In the kitchen was a poor little bit of fire. I made it up; and then I tried to get courage to go upstairs.... Well, somehow I was in the bedroom. I had taken a candle with me. I can't tell you how she looked. It would make you wish you could kill him. She looked at me with her poor glazed eyes. Her lips were black with fever. She cried, in a voice like a thread, for water, water!"
"God in heaven! and you love this brute yet?"
She hid her face for a moment.
"Hush, I've not finished! I did my best for her, poor Blaisette. For a minute she knew me and she tried to thank me; and very soon she fell asleep."
"And he came back at midnight?"
"No, not till the middle of Christmas Day; and then he was half drunk. Since then he has hardly been near the house; but he has not left Lihou. He has been about the stables, and come into the kitchen to get his meals once or twice; and he is drinking, drinking all the time. I can see he is afraid of the small-pox, and afraid of death. And yet, I believe, I am sure, he loves me yet; only I will not speak to him nor look at him, because of her, lying upstairs all unconscious."
Perrin stared at her, aghast. Was it possible a woman could love, actually love, the devil! Bah, it seemed so!