United States or North Macedonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And yet now, under the degradation of his crime and its penalty, and the unmanning influence of being the helpless victim of the iron power of the law, rigid, ugly and demoralising now with the solution of his life's great problem here before him in the hills, with the man for whom he had waited so long caverned in the earth, but a hand-reach away, as it were, his wrongs had taken a new manifestation in him, and the thing that kept crying out in him every moment was, Where is Marcile?
They took up the body and moved away with it up the ravine. "It's all right, Grassette. You'll be a freeman," said the Sheriff. Grassette did not answer. He was thinking how long it would take him to get to Marcile, when he was free. He had a true vision of beginning life again with Marcile.
In all the years that had gone he had had an ungovernable desire to kill both Bignold and Marcile if he ever met them a primitive, savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His fingers had ached for Marcile's neck, that neck in which he had lain his face so often in the transient, unforgettable days of their happiness. If she was alive now! if she was still alive!
The Sheriff's words had left no vestige of doubt in Grassette's mind. This Bignold was the man who had taken Marcile away, first to the English province, then into the States, where he had lost track of them, then over to England. Marcile where was Marcile now? In Keeley's Gulch was the man who could tell him, the man who had ruined his home and his life.
The tender sap of youth was in this glowing and alert new world, and, by sudden contrast with the prison walls which he had just left behind, the earth seemed recreated, unfamiliar, compelling and companionable. Strange that in all the years that had been since he had gone back to his abandoned home to find Marcile gone, the world had had no beauty, no lure for him.
In the splendour of it all, he had only raged and stormed, hating his fellowman, waiting, however hopelessly, for the day when he should see Marcile and the man who had taken her from him.
That was an affair of le bon Dieu, and enough would be provided for them all as heretofore one could make little difference; and though Jacques was a very good match, considering his prospects and his favour with the lumber-king, Valloir had a kind of fear of him, and could not easily promise his beloved Marcile, the flower of his flock, to a man of whom the priest so strongly disapproved.
That was an affair of le bon Dieu, and enough would be provided for them all as heretofore one could make little difference; and though Jacques was a very good match, considering his prospects and his favour with the lumber-king, Valloir had a kind of fear of him, and could not easily promise his beloved Marcile, the flower of his flock, to a man of whom the priest so strongly disapproved.
"Good girl Marcile. She loves you, but she is afraid." He tried to say something more, but his tongue refused its office. "Where is she-spik!" commanded Grassette in a tone of pleading and agony now. Once more the flying spirit came back. A hand made a motion towards his pocket, then lay still.
Grassette felt hastily in the dead man's pocket, drew forth a letter, and with half-blinded eyes read the few lines it contained. It was dated from a hospital in New York, and was signed: "Nurse Marcile." With a moan of relief Grassette stood staring at the dead man. When the others came to him again, his lips were moving, but they did not hear what he was saying.