"Didn't know it was as bad as that."
"It's something awful out east I heard. My husband brought home a paper from Calgary, and they had the whole front page in headlines about it. Them Yankees brought it in with them when they run away to escape from it in their own country. Wish they'd stay home and look after their own sicknesses, 'stead of coming across the line and carrying it along with them. Others have been flying out west here, and they say if we don't look out, first thing we know Calgary'll have it, and then—well, it'll be our turn. I heard they were shipping all the sick ones out of the city to the country."
The women looked at each other waveringly, licking their lips and turning white with dread. They drew their rugs closer about them and said they had to be off, as it was getting dark and they didn't want to catch cold, and no one ever knew when a change might blow up in the weather and that cloud off to the north looked mighty threatening. In the sudden panic of the approaching plague, Nettie was for the time being forgotten. The clatter and rattle of their wheels was heard along the road, as with whip and tongue they urged their horses homeward.
CHAPTER XVI
All night long the wind blew wildly. It raved like a live, mad thing, tearing across the country with tornado-like force.
The house shock and rocked upon its foundations, the rattling windows and clattering doors ready to be burst open every moment.
To the girl, lying wide-eyed throughout the night, it seemed almost as if the voice of the wild wind had the triumphant, mocking tone of the man she loathed. It seemed to typify his immense strength, his power and madness. It was gloating, triumphing over her, buffeting and trampling her down.
Nettie was not given to self-analysis, but for all her simplicity she was capable of intense feeling. Behind her slow thought there slumbered an unlimited capacity for suffering. Now even the elements were preying upon her morbid imagination. She could not sleep for the raging of the terrific wind, the incessant shaking of windows and doors, and all the sounds of a loosely built old ranch house, rattling and trembling in the furious tempest. As she lay in bed, her face crushed into her pillow, her hands over her ears, as though to deaden the roar of the wind, she could not rid her mind of the thought of the man she hated. She was doomed that night to relive the hideous hours spent with him, until, the vision becoming intolerable to her fevered mind, she sprang up in bed, and rocking herself to and fro like one half demented, sat in judgment upon her own acts.