Marie crossed the fence at
the wheatfield corner, and walked slowly along the path that led
to Alexandra's. She could not help feeling hurt that Emil had not
come to tell her about Amedee. It seemed to her most unnatural
that he should not have come. If she were in trouble, certainly
he was the one person in the world she would want to see. Perhaps
he wished her to understand that for her he was as good as gone
already.
Marie stole slowly, flutteringly, along the path, like a white
night-moth out of the fields. The years seemed to stretch before
her like the land; spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always
the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives;
always the same yearning, the same pulling at the chain--until the
instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last
time, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously
be released. Marie walked on, her face lifted toward the remote,
inaccessible evening star.
When she reached the stile she sat down and waited. How terrible
it was to love people when you could not really share their lives!
Yes, in so far as she was concerned, Emil was already gone.
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