tality and will.

"He has been cared for, Joan," said Prosper. "Some friend of his came
and did all that was left to be done."

"Some friend?" In the pale, delicately expanding light Joan's face
gleamed between its black coils of hair with eyes like enchanted
tarns. In fact they had been haunted during his absence by images to
shake her soul. Prosper could see in them reflections of those terrors
that had been tormenting her. His touch pressed reassurance upon her,
his eyes, his voice.

"My poor child! My dear! I'm glad I am back to take care of you! Cry.
Let me comfort you. He has been cared for. He is not lying there
alone. He is dead. Let's forgive him, Joan." He shook her hands a
little, urgently, and a most painful memory of Pierre's beseeching
grasp came upon Joan.

She wrenched away and fell back, quivering, but she did not cry, only
asked in her most moving voice, "Who took care of Pierre--after I went
away and left him dead?"

Prosper got to his feet and stood with his arms folded, looking
wearily down at her. His mouth had fallen into rather cynical lines
and there were puckers at the corners of his eyes. "Oh, a big, fair
young man--a rosy boy-face, serious-looking, blue eyes."

Joan was startled and turned round. "It was Mr. Holliwell," she said,
in a wondering tone. "Did you talk with him? Did you tell him--?"

"No. Hardly." Prosper shook his head. "I found out what he had done
for your Pierre without asking unnecessary questions. I saw him, but
he did not see me."

"He'll be comin' to get me," said Joan. It was an entirely unemotional
statement of certainty.

Prosper pressed his lips into a line and narrowed his eyes upon her.

"Oh, he will?"

"Yes. He'll be takin' after me. He must 'a' ben scairt by somethin'
Pierre said in the town durin' their quarrel an' have come up after
him to look out what Pierre would be doin' to me.... I wisht he'd 'a'
come in time.... What must he be thinkin' of me now, to find Pierre
a-lyin' there dead, an' me gone! He'll be takin' after me to bring me
home."

Prosper would almost have questioned her then, his sharp face was
certainly at that moment the face of an inquisitor, a set of keen and
delicate instruments ready for probing, but so weary and childlike did
she look, so weary and childlike was her speech, that he forbore. What
did it matter, after all, what there was in her past? She had done
what she had done, been what she had been. If the fellow had bran