They were both silent for a long time and in the silence the idyll was re-lived. Spring came again with its crest of green along the cañon and the lake lay like a turquoise drawing the glittering peak down into its heart.
“My book—its success,” Prosper began at last, “made me restless. You’ll understand that now that you are an artist yourself. And one day there came a letter from that woman I had loved.”
“It was a little square gray envelope,” said Joan breathlessly. “I can see it now. You never rightly looked at me again.”
“Ah!” said Prosper. He turned and hid his face.
“Tell me the rest,” said Joan.
He went on without turning back to her, his head bent. “The woman wrote that her husband was dying, that I must come back to her at once.”
The snow tapped and the fire crackled.
“And when you—went back?”
“Her husband did not die,” said Prosper blankly; “he is still alive.”
“And you still love her very much?”