The old man started and muttered harshly, but Fleda had foreseen the entrance of the dissolute Frenchman into the tale, and gave no sign of surprise.
“M’sieu’ Marchand bought horses,” the sad voice trailed on. “One day he bought the mining-claims Dennis had been holding till he could develop them or sell them for good money. When Dennis went to town again he brought me back a present of a belt with silver clasps; but yet again that night he slept upon the floor alone. So it went on. M. Marchand, he goes on to the mountains and comes back; and he buys more horses, and Dennis takes them to Yargo, and M. Marchand goes with him, but comes back before Dennis does. It was then M’sieu’ begun to talk to me; to say things that soothe a woman when she is hurt. I knew now Dennis did not want me as when he first married me. He was that kind of man—quick to care and quicker to forget. He was weak, he could not fasten where he stood. It pleased him to be gay and friendly with me when he was sober, but there was nothing behind it—nothing, nothing at all. At last I began to cry when I thought of it, for it went on and on, and I was too much alone. I looked at myself in the glass, and I saw I was not old or lean. I sang in the trees beside the brook, and my voice was even a little better than in the days when Dennis first came to my father’s house. I looked to my cooking, and I knew that it was as good as ever. I thought of my clothes, and how I did my hair, and asked myself if I was as fresh to see as when Dennis first came to me. I could see no difference. There was a clear pool not far away under the little hills where the springs came together. I used to bathe in it every morning and dry myself in the sun; and my body was like a child’s. That being so, should my own man turn his head away from me day or night? What had I done to be used so, less than two years after I had married!”
She paused and hung her head, weeping gently. “Shame stings a woman like nothing else,” Madame Bulteel said with a sigh.
“It was so with me,” continued Dennis’s wife. “Then at last the thought came that there was another woman. And all the time M. Marchand kept coming and going, at first when Dennis was there, and always with some good reason for coming—horses, cattle, shooting, or furs bought of the Indians. When Dennis was not there, he came at first for an hour or two, as if by chance, then for a whole day, because he said he knew I was lonely. One day, I was sitting by the pool—it was in the evening. I was crying because of the thought that followed me of another woman somewhere, who made Dennis turn from me. Then it was M’sieu’ came and put a hand on my shoulder—he came so quietly that I did not hear him till he touched me. He said he knew why I cried, and it saddened his soul.”
“His soul—the jackal!” growled the old man in his beard.
The woman nodded wearily and went on. “For all of ten days I had been alone, except for the cattlemen camping a mile away and an old Indian helper who slept in his tepee within call. Loneliness makes you weak when there’s something tearing at the heart. So I let M’sieu’ Marchand talk to me. At last he told me that there was a woman at Yargo—that Dennis did not go there for business, but to her. Everyone knew it except me, he said. He told me to ask old Throw Hard, the Indian helper, if he had spoken the truth. I was shamed, and angry and crazy, too, I think, so I went to old Throw Hard and asked him. He said he could not tell the truth, and that he would not lie to me. So I knew it was all true.
“How do I know what was in my mind? Is a woman not mad at such a time! There I was, tossed aside for a flyaway, who was for any man that would come her way. Yes, I think I was mad. The pride in me was hurt—as only a woman can understand.” She paused and looked at the two women who listened to her. Fleda’s eyes were on the world beyond the window of the room.
“Surely we understand,” whispered Madame Bulteel.
The woman’s courage returned, and she continued: “I could not go to my father, for he was riding the river scores of miles away. I was terribly alone. It was then that M’sieu’ Marchand, who had bribed the woman to draw Dennis away, begged me to go away with him. He swore I should marry him as soon as I could be free of Dennis. I scarcely knew what I said or thought; but the place I had loved was hateful to me, so I went away with him.”
A sharp, pained exclamation broke from the lips of Madame Bulteel, but presently she reached out and laid a hand upon the woman’s arm. “Of course you went with him,” she said. “You could not stay where you were and face the return of Dennis. There was no child to keep you, and the man that tempted you said he adored you?”