try," said Joan.

He accepted this and went on. "When I found you in your bed waiting
for news of Pierre, I thought you the most beautiful, pitiful thing I
had ever seen. I loved you then, Joan, then. Tell me, did I ever in
those days hurt you or give you a moment's anxiety or fear?"

"No," Joan admitted, "you did not. In those days you were wonderful,
kind and patient with me. I thought you were more like God than a
human then."

Prosper laughed with bitterness. "You thought very wrong, but,
according to my own lights, I was very careful of you. I meant to give
you all I could and I meant to win you with patience and forbearance.
I had respect for you and for your grief and for the horrible thing
you had suffered. Joan, by now you know better what the world is. Can
you reproach me so very bitterly for our--happiness, even if it was
short?"

"You lied to me," said Joan. "It wasn't just. We didn't start even.
And--and you knew what you wanted of me. I never guessed."

"You didn't? You never guessed?"

"No. Sometimes, toward the last, I was afraid. I felt that I ought to
go away. That day I ran off--you remember--I was afraid of you. I felt
you were bad and that I was bad too. Then it seemed to me that I'd
been dreadfully ungrateful and unkind. That was what began to make me
give way to my feelings. I was sorrowful because I had hurt you and
you so kind! The day I came in with that suit and spoke of--her as a
'tall child' and you cried, why, I felt so sorrowful that I'd made you
suffer. I wanted to comfort you, to put my hands on you in comfort,
like a mother, I felt. And you went out like you were angry and stayed
away all night as though you couldn't bear to be seeing me again in
your house that you had built for her. So I wrote you my letter and
went away. And then--it was all so awful cold and empty. I didn't know
Pierre was out there. I came back...."

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 canyon
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 tu