He had made, soon after their coming to the ranch, a cactus fence round the house enclosure; and seeing the dry ugliness of the long, straight sticks placed close together, Annesley disliked and wondered at it. At last she questioned Knight, and complained that the bristly barrier was an eyesore. She wished it might be taken down.
"Wait till spring," he answered. "It isn't a barrier; it's an allegory. Maybe when you see what happens you'll understand. Maybe you won't. It depends on your own feelings."
Annesley said no more, but she did not forget. She thought, if her understanding of the allegory meant any change of feeling which the man might be looking for in her, she would never understand. She hated to look at the line of stark, naked sticks, but they, and the "allegory" they represented, constantly recurred to her mind.
One day in spring she noticed that the sticks looked less dry. Knob-like buds had broken out upon them, the first sign that they were living things. It happened to be Easter eve, and she was restless, full of strange thoughts as the yellow-flowering grease-wood bushes were full of rushing sap.
A year ago that night her love for her husband had died its sudden, tragic death. In the very act of forgiveness, forgiveness had been killed.
Knight had gone off early that morning in his motor-car, the poor car which was a pathetic contrast to the glories of last year in England. He had gone before she was up, and had mentioned to the Chinese cook that he might not be back until late.
"That means after midnight," she told herself; and since she was free as air, she decided to take a long walk in the afternoon, as far as the river. It seemed that if she stayed in the house the thought of life as it might have been and life as it was would kill her on this day of all other days.
"I wish I could die!" she said. "But not here. Somewhere a long way off from everyone—and from him."
As she passed the cactus fence the buds were big.
Across the river, where the water flowed high and wide just then, lay Mexico. Annesley had never been there, though she could easily have gone, had she wished, from the ranch to El Paso, and from El Paso to the queer old historic town of Juarez. But she could not have gone without Knight, and there was no pleasure in travelling with him.