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 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?" "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."