“I’d be dead, I think,” she surmised, “and one day, I did deliberately choose.”
“How was that?”
“Get your notebook!” she jeered. “I thought if he was going to rely on the specious joys of liquor I would, and tried it. It was a blizzard day last winter. He had gone over to see the widow, and there was a bottle of rum in the cupboard. I took some hot milk, nutmeg, sugar, and rum. I’ve never felt so happy in my life, except––”
“With what exception?” he asked.
“Yesterday,” she answered, laughing, “and last night and to-day! You see, I’m free now. I say and do what I please. I don’t care any more. I’m perfectly brazen. I don’t love you, but I like you very much. You’re good company. I hope I am, too––”
“You are—splendid!” he cried, almost involuntarily, and she shivered.
“Let’s go walking again, will you?” she said. “I want to get out in the wind; I want to have the sky overhead, a sandbar under my feet, and all outdoors at my command. You don’t mind, you’d like to go?”
“To the earth’s end!” he replied, recklessly, and her gay laugh showed how well he had pleased her mood.
They kept close up to the north side of the bar because 134 down the wind the sand was lifting and rolling up in yellow clouds. They went to Winchester Chute, and followed its winding course through the wood patch. There was a slough of green water, with a flock of ducks which left precipitately on their approach. They returned down to the sandbar, and pressed their way through the thick clump of small willows into the switch willows and along the edge of the unbroken desert of sand. They could see the very surface of the bar rolling along before the wind, and as they walked along they found their feet submerged in the blast.
But when they arrived at the boat night was near at hand, and the enveloping cold became more biting and the gloom more depressing.