The woman looked gratefully at her. “That was what he said,” she answered. “He said he was tired of wandering, and that he wanted a home-and there was a big house in Montreal.”
She stopped suddenly upon an angry, smothered word from Fleda’s lips. A big house in Montreal! Fleda’s first impulse was to break in upon the woman’s story and tell her father what had happened just now outside their own house; but she waited.
“Yes, there was a big house in Montreal?” said Fleda, her eyes now resting sadly upon the woman.
“He said it should be mine. But that did not count. To be far away from all that had been was more than all else. I was not thinking of the man, or caring for him, I was flying from my shame. I did not see then the shame to which I was going. I was a fool, and I was mad and bad also. When I waked—and it was soon—there was quick understanding between us. The big house in Montreal—that was never meant for me. He was already married.”
The old man stretched heavily to his feet, leaned both hands on the table, and looked at the woman with glowering eyes, while Fleda’s heart seemed to stop beating.
“Married!” growled Gabriel Druse, with a blur of passion in his voice. He knew that Felix Marchand had followed his daughter as though he were a single man.
Fleda saw what was working in his mind. Since her father suspected, he should know all.
“He almost offered me the big house in Montreal this morning,” she said evenly and coldly.
A malediction broke from the old man’s lips.
“He almost thought he wanted me to marry him,” Fleda added scornfully.