There was a shriek from farther down the barge. “It’s beginning to rain, it’s beginning to rain!” A wild scramble ensued for cloaks and umbrellas. A furious shower was descending almost with the words, and the whole party slid off the two long seats into the straw on the bottom of the barge, and cowered under the carriage-robes pulled up around them for a shelter, showing only a mass of umbrellas above.
Lawson’s quick movements had insured Dosia’s protection.
“You are not getting wet at all?” He bent over her tenderly under the enveloping umbrella.
“Not at all,” she whispered.
It was as if everything were a confidence now. She reverted to the subject of their conversation:
“Oh, do you think you will really not come back?”
He laughed. “Yes, I mean it—now. Of course, you know that’s my chief fault—my resolutions are too frequently writ on sand.” He spoke of his own weakness with the bitter yet facile contempt which too often enervates still more instead of strengthening. “Yes, I mean it. Do you wonder I took your hand? Are you sorry I’m going—? is my little friend sorry? She mustn’t be sorry; you know, nobody is sorry—she must be glad to get rid of inc. Speak—and say it.”
“No,” whispered Dosia.
He pressed her arm close to him, as he held her hand and pulled the wraps around her, shifting the umbrella as the wind changed. One of the men in front lighted a lantern and held it out in the rain at arm’s length, to glimmer ahead in the pitchy darkness and show the road to the driver, who held the horses at a walk. The wagon lurched and tipped in mud-holes and unexpected ridges and depressions, running up once on the edge of a bank, while the couples on the floor of it screamed and laughed. There were muttered rolls of thunder in the distance. Rain in the night had always brought back the scene of the disaster to Dosia, but she only thought now that she could not think. All of her that lived was living at this moment here.
“Why are you so silent?” he murmured headily, after an interval.