Before he had realized the full import of his words, burning with rage against the brutal tyrant to whom the wife was of no more moment than the horse, Moreau answered:
“I will—let her stay!”
There was a moment’s pause. The emigrant’s face, dark with rage, was suddenly lightened by a curiously alert expression of intelligence. He looked at the woman in the background and then at the miner.
“I’m not giving anything away just now,” he answered. “When she’s well she’s of use. But I’ll swap her for your two horses.”
In the heat of his indignation and disgust Moreau turned and looked at the woman. She was leaning against the door frame, chalk-white, and staring at him. She made no sound, but her dog-like eyes seemed to speak for his mercy more eloquently than her tongue ever could.
“All right,” he said quietly. “It’s a bargain.”
“Done,” said the emigrant. “You’ll find her a good worker when she pulls herself together. You stay on here, Lucy. Bessie,” he sang out, “bring around them horses.”
Under the phlegm of his manner there was a sudden expanding heat of shame that he strove to hide. The woman neither stirred nor spoke, and Moreau stood with his back to her, struggling with his passion against the man who had been her owner. The impulse under which he had spoken had full possession of him, and his main feeling was his desire to rid himself of the emigrant and his other wife.
“Here,” he said, “go on and tell them that you’ll take the horses. Hurry up!”
The man needed no second bidding and made off rapidly round the corner of the cabin.