Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/217

203 the other times. I suppose it isn't you. It's the same impulse, after all, that took you south after—after the wild geese.” She stopped, almost broken down by the memory, and then recalled herself sternly. “It's the same thing that led you away after MacStrann through the storm. But whether it's a weakness in you, or the force of something outside your control, I see this thing clearly; we can't go on. This is the end.”

He seemed troubled, vaguely, as a dog is anxious when it sees a child weep and cannot make out the reason.

“Oh, Dan,” she burst out, “I love you more than ever! If it were I alone, I'd follow you to the end of the world, and live as you live, and do as you do. But it's Joan. She has to be raised as a child should be raised. She isn't going to live with—with wild horses and wolves all her life. And if she stays on here, don't you see that the same thing which is a curse in you will grow strong and be a curse in her? Don't you see it growing? It's in her eyes! Her step is too light. She's lost her fear of the dark. She's drifting back into wildness. Dan, she has to go with me back to the cabin!”

At that she saw him start again, and his hand went out with a swift, subtle gesture towards Joan.

“Let me have her! I have to have her! She's mine!” Then more gently: “You can come to see her whenever you will. And, finally pray God you will come and stay with us always.”