rned 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?"

"That's the worst of it, Joan," groaned Prosper. His groan changed
into a desperate laugh. "I love you. Now truly I do love you. If I
could marry you--if I could have you for my wife--" He waited,
breathing fast, then came and stood close before her. "I have never
wanted a woman to be my wife till now. I want you. I want you to be
the mother of my children."

Then Joan did look at him with all her eyes.

"I am Pierre's wife," she said. The liquid beauty had left her voice.
It was hoarse and dry. "I am Pierre's wife and I have already been the
mother of your child."

There was a long, rigid silence. "Joan--when?--where?" Prosper's
throat clicked.

"I knew it before you left. I couldn't tell you because you were so
changed. I worked all winter. It--it was born on an awful cold March
night. I think the woman let it--made it--die. She wanted me to work
for her during the summer and she thought I would be glad if the child
didn't live. She used to say I was 'in trouble' and she'd be glad if
she could 'help me out.'... It was what I was planning to live for ...
that child."

During the heavy stillness following Joan's dreadful, brief account of
birth and death, Prosper went through a strange experience. It seemed
to him that in his soul something was born and died. Always afterwards
there was a ghost in him--the father that might have been.

"I can't talk any more," said Joan faintly. "Won't you please go?"

CHAPTER VIII

AGAINST THE BARS

Jasper Morena had stood for an hour in a drafty passage of that dirty
labyrinth known vaguely to the public as "behind the scenes,"
listening to the wearisome complaints of a long-nosed young actor. It
was the sixth of such conversations that he had held that day: to
begin with, there had been a difficulty between a director and the
leading man. Morena's tact was still complete; he was very gentle to
the long-nosed youth; but the latter, had he been capable of seeing
anything but himself, must have noticed that his listener's face was
pale and faintly lined.

"Yes, my boy, of course, that's rea