How did it happen? Why did they
fight? And why has Jan gone away so soon after the killing? For Jan's
sake, you must tell me--everything."
He waited. It seemed to him that he could hear the fighting struggle in
Marie's breast. Then she began, brokenly, a little at a time, now and
then barely whispering the story. It was a woman's story, and she told it
like a woman, from the beginning. Perhaps at one time the rivalry between
Jan Thoreau and Francois Breault, and their struggle for her love, had
made her heart beat faster and her cheeks flush warm with a woman's pride
of conquest, even though she had loved one and had hated the other. None
of that pride was in her voice now, except when she spoke of Jan.
"Yes--like that--children together--we grew up," she confided. "It was
down there at Wollaston Post, in the heart of the big forests, and when I
was a baby it was Jan who carried me about on his shoulders. Oui, even
then he played the violin. I loved it. I loved Jan--always. Later, when I
was seventeen, Francois Breault came."
She was trembling.
"Jan has told me a little about those days," lied Blake. "Tell me the
rest, Marie."
"I--I knew I was going to be Jan's wife," she went on, the hands she had
withdrawn from his twisting nervously in her lap. "We both knew. And
yet--he had not spoken--he had not been definite. Oo-oo, do you
understand, M'sieu Duval? It was my fault at the beginning! Francois
Breault loved me.
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