His eyes had looked upon the last
thing in the world he might have guessed at or anticipated when
they beheld through the window of St. Pierre's cabin the beautiful
face and partly disrobed figure of Carmin Fanchet. The first
effect of that shock had been to drive him away. His action had
been involuntary, almost without the benefit of reason, as if
Carmin had been Marie-Anne herself receiving the caresses which
were rightfully hers, and upon which it was both insult and
dishonor for him to spy. He realized now that he had made a
mistake in leaving the window too quickly.
But he did not move back through the gloom, for there was
something too revolting in what he had seen, and with the
revulsion of it a swift understanding of the truth which made his
hands clench as he sat down on the edge of the raft with his feet
and legs submerged in the slow-moving current of the river. The
thing was not uncommon. It was the same monstrous story, as old as
the river itself, but in this instance it filled him with a
sickening sort of horror which gripped him at first even more than
the strangeness of the fact that Carmin Fanchet was the other
woman.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257