The drifter, the unstable, the good-for-nothing--did not falter. He had
thought, when it came to the point, he would fail himself; but a sort
of rage bore him forward. If he lived on, and confessed, they would shut
him up, take from him the one thing he loved, cut him off from her; sand
up his only well in the desert. Curse them! And he wrote by firelight
which mellowed the white sheets of paper; while, against the dark
curtain, the girl, in her nightgown, unconscious of the cold, stood
watching.
Men, when they drown, remember their pasts. Like the lost poet he had
"gone with the wind." Now it was for him to be true in his fashion. A
man may falter for weeks and weeks, consciously, subconsciously, even in
his dreams, till there comes that moment when the only thing impossible
is to go on faltering. The black cap, the little driven grey man looking
up at it with a sort of wonder--faltering had ceased!
He had finished now, and was but staring into the fire.
"No more, no more, the moon is dead,
And all the people in it;
The poppy maidens strew the bed,
We'll come in half a minute."
Why did doggerel start up in the mind like that? Wanda! The weed-flower
become so rare he would not be parted from her! The fire, the candles,
and the fire--no more the flame and flicker!
And, by the dark curtain, the girl watched.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83