Her shaken voice was so wonderful a music that he stood listening with sudden tears in his eyes.
“An’ I can’t ferget Pierre nor the old life, Mr. Gael, an’ when I think ’t was you that killed him, why, it breaks my heart. Oh, I know you hed to do it. I saw. An’ I know I couldn’t ‘a’ stayed with him no more. What he did, it made me hate him—but you can’t be thinkin’ how it was with Pierre an’ me before that night. We—we was happy. I ust to live with my father, Mr. Gael, an’ he was an awful man, an’ there was no lovin’ between us, but when I first seen Pierre lookin’ up at me, I first knowed what lovin’ might be like. I just came away with him because he asked me. He put his hand on my arm an’ said, ‘Will you be comin’ home with me, Joan Carver?’ That was the way of it. Somethin’ inside of me said, ‘Yes,’ fer all I was too scairt to do anything but look at him an’ shake my head. An’ the next mornin’ he was there with his horses. Oh, Mr. Gael, I can’t ferget him, even for hatin’. That brand on my shoulder, it’s all healed, but my heart’s so hurted, it’s so hurted. An’ when I come to thinkin’ of how kind an’ comfortin’ you are an’ what you’ve been a-doin’ fer me, why, then, at the same time, I can’t help but thinkin’ that you killed my Pierre. You killed him. Fergive me, please; I would love you if I could, but somethin’ makes me shake away from you—because Pierre’s dead.”
Again she wept, exhausted, broken-hearted weeping it was. And Prosper’s face was drawn by pity of her. That story of her life and love, it was a sort of saga, something as moving as an old ballad most beautifully sung. He half-guessed then that she had genius; at least, he admitted that it was something more than just her beauty and her sorrow that so greatly stirred him. To speak such sentences in such a voice—that was a gift. She had no more need of words than had a symphony. The varied and vibrant cadences of her voice gave every delicate shading of feeling, of thought. She was utterly expressive. All night, after he had seen her eat and sent her to her bed, the phrases of her music kept repeating themselves in his ears. “An’ so I first knowed what lovin’ might be like”; and, “I would love you, only somethin’ makes me shake away from you—because Pierre’s dead.” This was a Joan he had not yet realized, and he knew that after all his enchanted leopardess was a woman and that his wooing of her had hardly yet begun. So did she baffle him by the utter directness of her heart. There was so little of a barrier against him and yet—there was so much. For the first time, he doubted his wizardry, and, at that, his desire for the wild girl’s love stood up like a giant and gripped his soul.
Joan slept deeply without dreams; she had confessed herself. But Prosper was as restless and troubled as a youth. She had not made her escape; she had followed him home with humility, with confusion in her eyes. She had been glad to hold out her hands again to the fire on his hearth. And yet—he was now her prisoner.
CHAPTER XV
NERVES AND INTUITION
“Mr. Gael,” said Joan standing before him at the breakfast-table, “I’m a-goin’ to work.”
She was pale, gaunt, and imperturbable. He gave her a quick look, one that turned to amusement, for Joan was really as appealing to his humor as a child. She had such immense gravity, such intensity over her one-syllable statements of fact. She announced this decision and sat down.