"Where is he now?"

"I don't know." She waited for a minute, then said again, "I don't know.
When he was free, he came to me, but I--I could not. He thought, too,
that because he had been in gaol, that I wouldn't--be his wife. He didn't
think enough of himself, he didn't urge anything. And I wasn't
ready--no--no--no--how could I be! I didn't care so much about the gaol,
but he had killed John Marcey. The gaol--what was that to me! There was
no real shame in it unless he had done a mean thing. He had been
wicked--not mean. Killing is awful, but not shameful. Think--the
difference--if he had been a thief!"

Pierre nodded. "Then some one should have killed him!" he said. "Well,
after?"

"After--after--ah, he went away for a year. Then he came back; but no, I
was always thinking of that night I walked behind John Marcey's body to
the Fort. So he went away again, and we came here, and here we have
lived."

"He has not come here?"

"No; once from the far north he sent me a letter by an Indian, saying
that he was going with a half-breed to search for a hunting party, an
English gentleman and two men who were lost. The name of one of the men
was Brickney."

Pierre stopped short in a long whiffing of smoke. "Holy!" he said, "that
thief Brickney again. He would steal the broad road to hell if he could
carry it. He once stole the quarters from a dead man's eyes. Mon Dieu! to