She looked all about her. She was suddenly ashamed. Feeling as though she were playing a dangerous game, she held the pistol to her breast. She wanted the pistol to go off but she was afraid to pull the trigger.
She tried the cold ring of metal against her temple.
She felt herself ridiculous. Vainly she attempted to recall Winnie in the coffin, horrible and gone forever.
She sat down limply on a grass bank by the roadside. The gray, motionless foliage of the trees grew thick and cumulus against the rainy sky. In her lax hand she held the pistol, stupid pistol which could no longer convince her of its purpose. It lay inertly on her palm that rested among the long gray grasses brushed flat to the earth with their dull crystal weight of dew.
Death.
She kept repeating the bright word to herself. She was dead. She could not believe in death.
She stood up and shook her skirts and put the pistol in the bag.
She felt stupid and sick. Her boots were all over dust and burrs clung to her petticoats. She hardly saw what was around her. She had never felt such heaviness in her life.
She walked back and sat down in the dirty little waiting-room until a train should come. Already she fretted against herself. She did not believe in death. She could not hurt herself enough. She felt herself grow mean and hard and withered in her unbelief.
She went back.