ng, to our house. I scoured the country for you. Did you
know that?"

"No," said Joan slowly, "I didn't know that But it makes no difference
to me."

They were still standing a few paces apart, too intent upon their
inner tumult to heed any outward situation. She lowered her head in
that dangerous way of hers, looking up at him from under her brows.
Her color had returned and the make-up had a more natural look.

"Maybe you did write, maybe you did send money, maybe you did come
back--I don't care anything for all that." She made a gesture as if to
sweep something away. "The day after you left me in that house,
Pierre, my husband, came up the trail. He was taking after me. He
meant to fetch me home. You told me"--she began to tremble so
violently that the jewels on her neck clicked softly--"you told me he
was _dead_."

Prosper came closer, she moving back, till, striking the chair, she
sat down on it and looked up at him with her changed and embittered
eyes.

"Would you have gone back to him, Joan Landis, after he had tied you
up and branded your shoulder with his cattlebrand?"

"What has that got to do with it?" she asked, her voice lifting on a
wave of anger. "That was between my man and me. That was not for you
to judge. He loved me. It was through loving me too much, too
ignorantly, that he hurt me so." She choked. "But you--"

"Joan," said Prosper, and he laid his hand on her cold and rigid
fingers, "I loved you too."

She was still and stiff. After a long silence she seemed to select one
question from a tide of them.

"Why did you leave me?"

"I wrote you a full explanation. The letter came back to me unread."

Again Joan gave the laugh and the gesture of disdain.

"That doesn't matter ... your loving or not loving. You made use of me
for your own ends, and when you saw fit, you left me. But that's not
my complaint. I don't say I didn't deserve that. I was easy to use.
But it was all based on what wasn't true. I was married, my man was
living, and I had dealings with you. That was sin. That was horrible.
That was what my mother did. She was a ----" Joan used the coarse and
ugly word her father had taught her, and Prosper laid a hand over her
mouth.

"Joan! No! Never say it, never think it. You are clean."

Joan twisted herself free, stood up, and walked away. "I am _that_!"
she said grimly; "and it was you that made me. You took lots of
trouble to make me see things in a way where nothing a pers