Throwing down the mail sack and tossing her hat upon it, she sank on the side bench where she folded her arms on the edge of the bunk and buried her face in them. For a long time she remained so, motionless, in the silence that seemed to crush her.
When Kate arose finally it was as if she were lifting a burden. Undressing slowly, she lay down on the bunk and looked out through the window at the white world swimming in moonlight. Ordinarily, she shut her eyes to moonlight, it had a way of stirring up emotions which had no place in her scheme of life. It always made her think of Disston, of the light in his eyes when he had looked at her, of the feeling of his arms about her, of his lips on hers when he had kissed her. At such times it filled her with a longing for him which was a kind of sweet torture that unnerved her and made the goal for which she strove of infinitesimal importance.
But that was one of the tricks of moonlight, she told herself angrily, to dwarf the things which counted, and with its false glamour give a fictitious value to those which in reality were but impediments. To-night the arguments were hollow as echoes. It was like telling herself, she thought, that she was going to sleep when she knew she was not. She yearned for Disston with all the intensity of her strong nature, and her efforts to conquer the longing seemed only to increase it.
“God!” She sat up suddenly and struck her breast as though the blow might somehow stop the pain there, and asked herself fiercely: “Must I live forever with this heartache? Isn’t there some peace? Some way of dulling it until my heart stops beating?” She stretched out her arms and her voice broke with the sob that choked her as she cried miserably:
“Oh, Hughie! Hughie! I love you, and I can’t help it!”
She felt herself stifling in the wagon and flung aside the covering. Thrusting her bare feet into moccasins and slipping on a sweater, she stepped into the white world that had the still emptiness of space.
The sheep dog got up from under the wagon and stood in front of her with a look of inquiry, but she gave no heed to him; instead, after a moment’s indecision, she walked swiftly to the hillside where a shaft of marble shone in the moonlight. The sheep dog was at her heels, and when she crawled beneath the wire that fenced the spot where Mormon Joe had turned to dust, it followed.
Mormon Joe was only a name, a memory, but he had loved her unselfishly and truly. Kate clasped her arms about the shaft and laid her cheek against it as if in some way she might draw consolation from it. But its coldness chilled her. Then, with her face upturned in supplication, as though his soul might be somewhere in the infinite space above her, she cried aloud in her anguish as she had in another and different kind of crisis:
“Uncle Joe, I’m lost! I don’t know which way to go—there’s no signboard to direct me. Please, please, if you can, come back and help me—please—help Katie Prentice!”
The sheep dog with his head on his paws watched her gravely. In the corral below there was the sound of stirring horses; otherwise only silence answered her. No light, no help came to her. Her hands dropped gradually to her sides. It was always so—in the end she was thrown back upon herself. Nothing came to her save by her own efforts. There were no miracles performed for Kate Prentice. A sullen defiance filled her. If this was all life had for her she could stand it; she could go on as usual taking her medicine with as little fuss as possible. That’s all life seemed to be—taking the medicine the Fates doled out in one form or another. To live bravely, to die with all the courage one could muster, were the principal things anyhow. She got up from her knees by the sunken grave slowly and stood erect once more, holding her chin high in self-sufficient arrogance. She would take the best out of life as it offered and be done with ideals that ended in emotional hysteria like this present experience. Life was a compromise anyhow. If she couldn’t have the substance, she would have the shadow. If she couldn’t have friendships given her, she’d buy imitations that would answer. If love and romance were not for her, she’d accept the expedient that offered and be satisfied!