ng in me, I struck the pillow
beside me with my fist. Something bounced from it on the floor with a
clack like wood. I stretched downward from one of Madame Ursule's thick
feather beds, and picked up what brought me to my feet. Without letting
go of it I lighted my candle. It was the padlocked book which Skenedonk
said he had burned.

And there the scoundrel lay at the other side of the room, wrapped in
his blanket from head to foot, mummied by sleep. I wanted to take him by
the scalp lock and drag him around on the floor.

He had carried it with him, or secreted it somewhere, month after month.
I could imagine how the state of the writer worked on his Indian mind.
He repented, and was not able to face me, but felt obliged to restore
what he had withheld. So waiting until I slept, he brought forth the
padlocked book and laid it on the pillow beside my head; thus beseeching
pardon, and intimating that the subject was closed between us.

I got my key, and then a fit of shivering seized me. I put the candle
stand beside the pillow and lay wrapped in bedding, clenching the small
chilly padlock and sharp-cornered boards. Remembering the change which
had come upon the life recorded in it, I hesitated. Remembering how it
had eluded me before, I opened it.

The few entries were made without date. The first pages were torn out,
crumpled, and smoothed and pasted to place again. Rose petals and
violets and some bright poppy leaves, crushed inside its lids, slid down
upon the bedcover.

VIII

The padlocked book--In this book I am going to write you, Louis, a
letter which will never be delivered; because I shall burn it when it is
finished. Yet that will not prevent my tantalizing you about it. To the
padlocked book I can say what I want to say. To you I must say what is
expedient.

That is a foolish woman who does violence to love by inordinate loving.
Yet first I will tell you that I sink to sleep saying, "He loves me!"
and rise to the surface saying, "He loves me!" and sink again saying,
"He loves me!" all night long.

The days when I see you are real days, finished and perfect, and this is
the best of them all. God forever bless in paradise your mother for
bearing you. If you never had come to the world I should not have waked
to life myself. And why this is I cannot tell. The first time I ever saw
your tawny head and tawny eyes, though you did not notice me, I said,
"Whether he is the king or not would make no