A little beetle, green and bronze, climbed in and out among the sand of the river-shore; her eyes vacantly followed the insect's aimless circles. She tried to think, and could not; her thoughts went feebly and madly round and round, round and round, as the beetle went in his maze of sand. It was all so gray, so still, so chill, she was afraid of it. Her limbs were stiffened by the exposure and dews of the night. She shivered and was cold.
The sun rose—a globe of flame above the edge of the world.
Memory flashed on her with its light.
She rose a little, staggering and blind, and weakened by the loss of blood; she crept feebly to the edge of the stream, and washed the stains from her lips, and let her face rest a little in the sweet, silent, flowing water.
Then she sat still amidst the long rushlike grass, and thought, and thought, and wondered why life was so tough and merciless a thing, that it would ache on, and burn on, and keep misery awake to know itself even when its death-blow had been dealt, and the steel was in its side.
She was still only half sensible of her wretchedness. She was numbed by weakness, and her brain seemed deadened by a hot pain, that shot through it as with tongues of flame.
The little beetle at her feet was busied in a yellower soil than sand. He moved round and round in a little dazzling heap of coins and trembling paper thin as gauze. She saw it without seeing for awhile; then, all at once, a horror flashed on her. She saw that the money had fallen from her tunic. She guessed the truth—that in his last embrace he had slid into her bosom, in notes and in coin, half that sum whereof he had spoken as the ransom which had set him free.
Her bloodless face grew scarlet with an immeasurable shame. She would have suffered far less if he had killed her.
He who denied her love to give her gold! Better that, when he had kissed her, he had covered her eyes softly with one hand, and with the other driven his knife straight through the white warmth of her breast.
The sight of the gold stung her like a snake.