Authority had been supreme. Labor, content, prosperity had reigned. Health and life and vigor had been everywhere. On the horizon of existence no cloud; none over the sun of progress.
And now, suddenly--annihilation!
With a groan that was a sob, her face drawn and pale, eyes fixed and unseeing, Beatrice turned back up the terrace path, back up the steep, toward the only door still at her command--Hope Villa.
Back toward the only one of these strange Folk still loyal; back toward her child.
Her head felt strangely giddy. The depths at her left hand, below the parapet of stone, seemed to be calling--calling insistently. Before her sight something like a veil was drawn; and yet it was not a veil, but a peculiar haze, now and then intershot with sparkles of pale light.
Through her mind flittered for the first time something like an adequate realization of the vast, abysmal gulf in culture-status still yawning between these barbarians and Allan and herself.
“Civilization,” she stammered in an odd voice; “why that means--generations!”
All at once she wondered if she were going to faint. A sudden pain had stabbed her temples; a humming had attacked her ears.
She put out her hand against the rock wall of the cliff at the right to steady herself. Her mouth felt hot and very dry.
“I--I must get back home,” she said weakly. “I'm not at all well--this morning. Overexertion--”