Whom the Gods Destroyed

by Josephine Daskam Bacon

She rocked back and forth, dry-eyed, but in an agony of grief. The pastor remembered the time when he had wrestled with certain damnation in the form of terrible religious doubt, and experienced again that peculiar helplessness, that isolation, that terror of hope gone from him that had dignified even his commonplace life. His vocabulary forsook him, his periods and phrases receded from his mind like the tide from the beach, and left it bare of suggestion. He looked at her for a moment, and as she bent her tired old head over her arm and sobbed the dry, creaking sob of the ageing spirit that looks forward to no long and gayer future, he felt that the time was short and kindness not too lenient for the sinner.

"I will send my wife over," he said, suddenly. "Would—would you want to see her?"

Harriet had stiffened again and got herself in hand. "I don't want that any one should put 'emselves out for me," she said dryly. "I guess I'll get along. I'd just as lief see Mis' Freeland if it ain't any trouble to any one. But I don't know as anybody c'n do anything. I ain't very pleasant comp'ny. An' I dunno as the room's cleared up enough. I ain't swept it sence day before yesterday."

Her guest had risen and moved toward the door. He felt curiously cold and dull. Was this the help he had come to give? His tongue was tied; his lips refused to utter even one text.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Blake," he said.

"Good-afternoon," said Harriet, and he went out.

She shut the door behind him, and stood for a moment looking at the pigeons. Emotion had shaken her too often of late, and she was too tired to bear more confusion of feeling. She only knew that she was very tired, and that she should like to get away from the scene of so many struggles. Suddenly she took her gingham sunbonnet from the wall, and left the room. She went softly down the hall, and slipping through the screen door near the lower end crept down the back stairs and through the deserted kitchen.

A Sunday stillness reigned there, and no one was near to see her. She got a piece of bread from the large pantry, and noticed with disgust that the shelves were dusty and the bread-tin full of pieces and crusts. To keep this neat was her work, but she had been excused for the last three days, since she was far too weak to manage it. Out through the last blind-door, and she was in the field behind the barn. She walked feverishly to the little wood close by and sank down exhausted under a large chestnut-tree.

"I'm tired—I'm dead tired out!" she whispered to herself. "I'll just stay here a minute 'fore I go on."

Had Mr. Freeland seen her then he would have been more startled than before, for two red spots burned in her sunken cheeks and her eyes glittered unnaturally. She had not eaten since breakfast, for the boiled dinner had sickened her, and though she was weak for want of food she had not strength to munch the great piece of rye bread. Her head swam a little and strange tunes seemed to sound all about her. Her mother's voice, almost in her ear, sang her to sleep with the Old Hundred Doxology, and for a moment she listened entranced, but as the phantom voice reached the last line she opened her eyes.