Remembering Duval as Jan
had enshrined him in her heart, she said:
"I have prayed many times that the great God might thank you, m'sieu."
He raised a hand. For an instant it touched her soft, warm cheek and
caressed her hair. Marie did not shrink--yes, that would have been an
insult. Even Jan would have said that. For was not this Duval, to whom
she owed all the happiness in her life--Duval, more than brother to Jan
Thoreau, her husband?
"And you--are Marie?" said Blake.
"Yes, m'sieu, I am Marie."
A joyous note trembled in her voice as she drew back from the cot. He
could hear her swiftly braiding her hair before she struck a match to
light the oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. After that, through partly
closed eyes, he watched her as she prepared their supper. Occasionally,
when she turned toward him as if to speak, he feigned a desire to sleep.
It was a catlike watchfulness, filled with his old cunning. In his face
there was no sign to betray its hideous significance. Outwardly he had
regained his iron-like impassiveness; but in his body and his brain every
nerve and fiber was consumed by a monstrous desire--a desire for this
woman, the murderer's wife. It was as strange and as sudden as the death
that had come to Francois Breault.
The moment he had looked up into her face in the doorway, it had
overwhelmed him. And now even the sound of her footsteps on the floor
filled him with an exquisite exultation.
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