The door was open and the bright
morning light flooded the room. Beyond the entrance stretched the open
prairie: an endless sea of green with a tiny brown island, her own
dooryard, in the foreground. With dull listlessness, the girl propped
herself up in bed and sat looking about her. Absently, aimlessly, her
eyes passed from one familiar object to another. Without any definite
conception of why or of where, she was conscious of an impression of
change in the material world about her, a change that corresponded to
the mental crisis that had so recently taken place. Glad as was the
sunshine without this morning, in her it aroused no answering joy.
Ubiquitous as was the vivid surrounding life, its message passed her by.
Like a haze enveloping, dulling all things, was a haunting memory of
the past night and of what it had meant. As a traveller lost in this
fog, she lay staring about, indecisive which way to move, idly waiting
for light. Ordinarily action itself would have offered a solution of the
problem, would have served at least as a diversion; but this morning she
was strangely listless, strangely indifferent. There seemed to her no
adequate reason for rising, no definite object in doing anything more
than she was doing. In conformity she pulled the pillow higher and,
lifting herself wearily, dropped her chin into her palm and lay with
wide-open eyes staring aimlessly away.
Just how long she remained there so, she did not know.
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