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Ikni rose, came over, and peered into the face of the half-breed. Then she muttered: “I know you–I know you. The dead has come back again.” She caught his arm with her bony fingers as if to satisfy herself that he was flesh and blood, and shaking her head dolefully, went from the room. When the door closed behind her there was silence, broken only by an exclamation from the man.

The other drew her hand across her eyes, and dropped it with a motion of despair. Then Pierre said, sharply: “Bien?”

“Francois,” she replied, “you are alive!”

“Yes, I am alive, Lucy.”

She shuddered, then grew still again and whispered: “Why did you let it be thought that you were drowned? Why? Oh, why”? she moaned.

He raised his eyebrows slightly, and between the puffs of smoke, said:

“Ah yes, my Lucy, why? It was so long ago. Let me see: so–so–ten years. Ten years is a long time to remember, eh?”

He came towards her. She drew back; but her hand remained on the chair. He touched the plain gold ring on her finger, and said:

“You still wear it. To think of that–so loyal for a woman! How she remembers, holy Mother!… But shall I not kiss you, yes, just once after eight years–my wife?”

She breathed hard and drew back against the wall, dazed and frightened, and said:

“No, no, do not come near me; do not speak to me–ah, please, stand back, for a moment–please!”

He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and continued, with mock tenderness:

“To think that things come round so! And here you have a home. But that is good. I am tired of much travel and life all alone. The prodigal goes not to the home, the home comes to the prodigal.” He stretched up his arms as if with a feeling of content.

“Do you–do you not know,” she said, “that–that–“

He interrupted her:

“Do I not know, Lucy, that this is your home? Yes. But is it not all the same? I gave you a home ten years ago–to think, ten years ago! We quarrelled one night, and I left you. Next morning my boat was found below the White Cascade–yes, but that was so stale a trick! It was not worthy of Francois Rives. He would do it so much better now; but he was young then; just a boy, and foolish. Well, sit down, Lucy, it is a long story, and you have much to tell, how much–who knows?” She came slowly forward and said with a painful effort:

“You did a great wrong, Francois. You have killed me.

“Killed you, Lucy, my wife! Pardon! Never in those days did you look so charming as now–never. But the great surprise of seeing your husband, it has made you shy, quite shy. There will be much time now for you to change all that. It is quite pleasant to think on, Lucy…. You remember the song we used to sing on the Chaudiere at St. Antoine? See, I have not forgotten it–

“‘Nos amants sont en guerre,
Vole, mon coeur, vole.'”

He hummed the lines over and over, watching through his half-shut eyes the torture he was inflicting.

“Oh, Mother of God,” she whispered, “have mercy! Can you not see, do you not know? I am not as you left me.”

“Yes, my wife, you are just the same; not an hour older. I am glad that you have come to me. But how they will envy Pretty Pierre!”

“Envy–Pretty-Pierre,” she repeated, in distress; “are you Pretty Pierre? Ah, I might have known, I might have known!”

“Yes, and so! Is not Pretty Pierre as good a name as Francois Rives? Is it not as good as Shon McGann?”

“Oh, I see it all, I see it all now!” she said mournfully. “It was with you he quarrelled, and about me. He would not tell me what it was. You know, then, that I am–that I am married–to him?”