The Flaming Forest by James Oliver Curwood (leveled readers txt) 📕

have picked her out. But close, like this, with her eyes smiling at him, she was adorable.
Something of Carrigan's thoughts must have shown in his face, for suddenly the girl's lips tightened a little, and the warmth went out of her eyes, leaving them cold and distant. He finished the soup, and she rose again to her feet.
"Please don't go," he said. "If you do, I think I shall get up and follow. I am quite sure I am entitled to a little something more than soup."
"Nepapinas says that you may have a bit of boiled fish for supper," she assured him.
"You know I don't mean that. I want to know why you shot me, and what you think you are going to do with me."
"I shot you by mistake--and--I don't know just what to do with you," she said, looking at him tranquilly, but with what he thought was a growing shadow of perplexity in her eyes. "Bateese says to fasten a big stone to your neck and throw you in the river. But Bateese doesn't always mean what he says. I don't think he is quite as bloodthirsty--"
"--As the young lady who tried to murder me behind the rock," Carrigan interjected.
"Exactly, m'sieu. I don't think he would throw you into the river --unless I told him to. And I don't believe I am going to ask him to do that," she added, the soft glow flashing back into her eyes for an instant. "Not after the splendid work Nepapinas has done on your head. St. Pierre must see that. And then, if St. Pierre wishes to finish you, why--" She shrugged her slim shoulders and made a little gesture with her hands.
In that same moment there came over her a change as sudden as the passing of light itself. It was as if a thing she was hiding had broken beyond her control for an instant and had betrayed her. The gesture died. The glow went out of her eyes, and in its place came a light that was almost fear--or pain. She came nearer to Carrigan again, and somehow, looking up at her, he thought of the little brush warbler singing at the end of its birch twig to give him courage. It must have been because of her throat, white and soft, which he saw pulsing like a beating heart before she spoke to him.
"I have made a terrible mistake, m'sieu David," she said, her voice barely rising above a whisper. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I thought it was some one else behind the rock. But I can not tell you more than that--ever. And I know it is impossible for us to be friends." She paused, one of her hands creeping to her bare throat, as if to cover the throbbing he had seen there.
"Why is it impossible?" he demanded, leaning away from his pillows so that he might bring himself nearer to her.
"Because--you are of the police, m'sieu."
"The police, yes," he said, his heart thrumming inside his breast. "I am Sergeant Carrigan. I am out after Roger Audemard, a murderer. But my commission has nothing to do with the daughter of St. Pierre Boulain. Please--let's be friends--"
He held out his hand; and in that moment David Carrigan placed another thing higher than duty--and in his eyes was the confession of it, like the glow of a subdued fire. The girl's fingers drew more closely at her throat, and she made no movement to accept his hand.
"Friends," he repeated. "Friends--in spite of the police."
Slowly the girl's eyes had widened, as if she saw that new-born thing riding over all other things in his swiftly beating heart. And afraid of it, she drew a step away from him.
"I am not St. Pierre Boulain's daughter," she said, forcing the words out one by one. "I am--his wife."


VII
Afterward Carrigan wondered to what depths he had fallen in the first moments of his disillusionment. Something like shock, perhaps even more than that, must have betrayed itself in his face. He did not speak. Slowly his outstretched arm dropped to the white counterpane. Later he called himself a fool for allowing it to happen, for it was as if he had measured his proffered friendship by what its future might hold for him. In a low, quiet voice Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain was saying again that she was St. Pierre's wife. She was not excited, yet he understood now why it was he had thought her eyes were very dark. They had changed swiftly. The violet freckles in them were like little flecks of gold. They were almost liquid in their glow, neither brown nor black now, and with that threat of gathering lightning in them. For the first time he saw the slightest flush of color in her cheeks. It deepened even as he held out his hand again. He knew that it was not embarrassment. It was the heat of the fire back of her eyes. "It's--funny," he said, making an effort to redeem himself with a lie and smiling. "You rather amaze me. You see, I have been told this St. Pierre is an old, old man--so old that he can't stand on his feet or go with his brigades, and if that is the truth, it is hard for me to picture you as his wife. But that isn't a reason why we should not be friends. Is it?"
He felt that he was himself again, except for the three days' growth of beard on his face. He tried to laugh, but it was rather a poor attempt. And St. Pierre's wife did not seem to hear him. She was looking at him, looking into and through him with those wide-open glowing eyes. Then she sat down, out of reach of the hand which he had held toward her.
"You are a sergeant of the police," she said, the softness gone suddenly out of her voice. "You are an honorable man, m'sieu. Your hand is against all wrong. Is it not so?" It was the voice of an inquisitor. She was demanding an answer of him.
He nodded. "Yes, it is so."
The fire in her eyes deepened. "And yet you say you want to be the friend of a stranger who has tried to kill you. WHY, m'sieu?"
He was cornered. He sensed the humiliation of it, the impossibility of confessing to her the wild impulse that had moved him before he knew she was St. Pierre's wife. And she did not wait for him to answer.
"This--this Roger Audemard--if you catch him--what will you do with him?" she asked.
"He will be hanged," said David. "He is a murderer."
"And one who tries to kill--who almost succeeds--what is the penalty for that?" She leaned toward him, waiting. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, the spots were brighter in her cheeks.
"From ten to twenty years," he acknowledged. "But, of course, there may be circumstances--"
"If so, you do not know them," she interrupted him. "You say Roger Audemard is a murderer. You know I tried to kill you. Then why is it you would be my friend and Roger Audemard's enemy? Why, m'sieu?"
Carrigan shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "I shouldn't," he confessed. "I guess you are proving I was wrong in what I said. I ought to arrest you and take you back to the Landing as soon as I can. But, you see, it strikes me there is a big personal element in this. I was the man almost killed. There was a mistake,--must have been, for as soon as you put me out of business you began nursing me back to life again. And--"
"But that doesn't change it," insisted St. Pierre's wife. "If there had been no mistake, there would have been a murder. Do you understand, m'sieu? If it had been some one else behind that rock, I am quite certain he would have died. The Law, at least, would have called it murder. If Roger Audemard is a criminal, then I also am a criminal. And an honorable man would not make a distinction because one of them is a woman!"
"But--Black Roger was a fiend. He deserves no mercy. He--"
"Perhaps, m'sieu!"
She was on her feet, her eyes flaming down upon him. In that moment her beauty was like the beauty of Carmin Fanchet. The poise of her slender body, her glowing cheeks, her lustrous hair, her gold-flecked eyes with the light of diamonds in them, held him speechless.
"I was sorry and went back for you," she said. "I wanted you to live, after I saw you like that on the sand. Bateese says I was indiscreet, that I should have left you there to die. Perhaps he is right. And yet--even Roger Audemard might have had that pity for you."
She turned quickly, and he heard her moving away from him. Then, from the door, she said,
"Bateese will make you comfortable, m'sieu."
The door opened and closed. She was gone. And he was alone in the cabin again.
The swiftness of the change in her amazed him. It was as if he had suddenly touched fire to an explosive. There had been the flare, but no violence. She had not raised her voice, yet he heard in it the tremble of an emotion that was consuming her. He had seen the flame of it in her face and eyes. Something he had said, or had done, had tremendously upset her, changing in an instant her attitude toward him. The thought that came to him made his face burn under its scrub of beard. Did she think he was a scoundrel? The dropping of his hand, the shock that must have betrayed itself in his face when she said she was St. Pierre's wife--had those things warned her against him? The heat went slowly out of his face. It was impossible. She could not think that of him. It must have been a sudden giving way under terrific strain. She had compared herself to Roger Audemard, and she was beginning to realize her peril--that Bateese was right--that she should have left him to die in the sand!
The thought pressed itself heavily upon Carrigan. It brought him suddenly back to a realization of how small a part he had played in this last half hour in the cabin. He had offered to Pierre's wife a friendship which he had no right to offer and which she knew he had no right to offer. He was the Law. And she, like Roger Audemard, was a criminal. Her quick woman's instinct had told her there could be no distinction between them, unless there was a reason. And now Carrigan confessed to himself that there had been a reason. That reason had come to him with the first glimpse of her as he lay in the hot sand. He had fought against it in the canoe; it had mastered him in those thrilling moments when he had beheld this slim, beautiful creature riding fearlessly into the boiling waters of the Holy Ghost. Her eyes, her hair, the sweet, low voice that had been with him in his fever, had become a definite and unalterable part of him. And this must have shown in his eyes and face when he dropped his hand--when she told him she was St. Pierre's wife.
And now she was afraid of him! She was regretting that she had not left him to die. She had misunderstood what she had seen betraying itself during those few seconds of his proffered friendship. She saw only a man whom she had nearly killed, a man who represented the Law, a man whose power held her in the hollow of his hand. And she had stepped back from him, startled, and had told him that