Muffins! And
after a deluge that had drowned every square inch of the earth!
How had Bateese turned the trick?
Bateese did not return immediately for the dishes, and for half an
hour after he had finished breakfast Carrigan smoked his pipe and
watched the blue haze of fires on the far side of the river. The
world was a blaze of sunlit glory. His imagination carried him
across the river. Somewhere over there, in an open spot where the
sun was blazing, Jeanne Marie-Anne was probably drying herself
after the night of storm. There was but little doubt in his mind
that she was already heaping the ignominy of blame upon him. That
was the woman of it.
A knock at his door drew him about. It was a light, quick TAP,
TAP, TAP--not like the fist of either Bateese or Nepapinas. In
another moment the door swung open, and in the flood of sunlight
that poured into the cabin stood St. Pierre's wife!
It was not her presence, but the beauty of her, that held him
spellbound. It was a sort of shock after the vivid imaginings of
his mind in which he had seen her beaten and tortured by storm.
Her hair, glowing in the sun and piled up in shining coils on the
crown of her head, was not wet.
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