" She laughed again involuntarily. "I
hadn't myself a few weeks ago. I think I was even more deficient than
you; but now--now--" Once again the tense-strung laugh, while in her lap
the crossed hands locked and grew white from mutual pressure. "Now of a
sudden I seem to see humour in everything!"
More than perplexed, concerned, distressed from his very inability to
fathom the new mood, the man again brought the team to a walk, fumbled
with the reins impotently.
"Something's wrong, Bess," he hesitated. "Something's worrying you. Tell
me what it is, won't you?"
"Wrong?" The girl returned the look fair, almost defiantly. "Wrong?"
Still again the laugh; unmusical, hysterical. "Certainly nothing is
wrong. What could be wrong when two people who have so much in common as
you and I, who touch at so many places, are just married and alone?
Wrong: the preposterous idea!"
She was silent, and of a sudden the all-surrounding stillness seemed to
be intensified. For at last, at last the man understood and was looking
at her; looking at her wordlessly, with an expression that was terrible
in its haunting suggestion of unutterable sadness, of infinite pain. He
did not say a word; he merely looked at her; but shade by shade as the
seconds passed there vanished from his face to the last bit every trace
of the glory that had been its predecessor. Not until it was gone did
the girl realise to the full what she had done, realise the mortal stab
she had inflicted; then of a sudden came realisation in a gust and
contrition unspeakable.
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