The Honor of the Big Snows - James Oliver Curwood (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📗

if--you go away again."
"You know!" breathed Jan. He was in his cot, and raised himself, clasping her beautiful face between his two hands, staring at her with the old horror in his eyes. "You know--and you come--to me!"
"I love you," said Melisse. She slipped up to him and laid her face upon his breast, and with her fingers clutched in his long hair she leaned over to him and kissed him. "I love you!"
Jan's arms closed about her, and he bowed his face so that it was smothered in her hair and he felt against it the joyous tremble of her bosom.
"I love you," she whispered again, and under her cloud of hair their lips met, and she whispered again, with her sweet breath still upon his lips, "I love you."
Outside Jean de Gravois was dancing up and down in the starlit edge of the forest, and Iowaka was looking at him.
"And NOW what do you think of your Jean de Gravois?" cried Jean for the hundredth time at least. "NOW what do you think of him, my beautiful one?" and he caught Iowaka's head in his arms, for the hundredth time, too, and kissed her until she pushed him away. "Was it not right for me to break my oath to the Blessed Virgin and tell Melisse why Jan Thoreau had gone mad? Was it not right, I say? And did not Melisse do as I told that fool of a Jan that she WOULD do? And didn't she HATE the Englishman all of the time? Eh? Can you not speak, my raven-haired angel?"
He hugged Iowaka again in his arms, and this time he did not let her go, but turned her face so that the starlight fell upon it.
"And NOW what if Jan Thoreau still feels that the curse is upon him?" he asked softly. "Ho, ho, we have fixed that--you, my sweet Iowaka, and your husband, Jean de Gravois. I have it--here--in my pocket--the letter signed by the sub-commissioner at Prince Albert, to whom I told Jan's story when I followed his trail down there--the letter which says that the other woman died BEFORE the man who was to be Jan Thoreau's father married the woman who was to be his mother. And NOW do you understand why I did not tell Melisse of this letter, ma cherie? It was to prove to that fool of a Jan Thoreau that she loved him--WHATEVER HE WAS. NOW what do you think of Jean de Gravois, you daughter of a princess, you--you--"
"Wife of the greatest man in the world," laughed Iowaka softly. "Come, my foolish Jean, we can not stand out for ever. I am growing cold. And besides, do you not suppose that Jan would like to see ME?"
"Foolish--foolish--foolish--" murmured Jean as they walked hand in hand through the starlight. "She, my Iowaka, my beloved, says that I am foolish--AND AFTER THIS! Mon Dieu, what can a man do to make himself great in the eyes of his wife?"
THE END
Imprint

Publication Date: 11-26-2009

All Rights Reserved