But early in August she began to feel a desire to be alone for a while—a need for solitude,—leisure for self-examination.
Lately, too, she had thought much of her home. Not that she missed the people who inhabited it. There never had been any tie between her and her father.
But the girl cherished no resentment toward him. And toward Mazie all her instincts always had been friendly.
Often she had thought of Whitewater Farms, not regretting, not even missing the home where she had been born, unwelcomed.
Yet, in these last weeks, a desire to go home for a while had developed, and had slowly increased to a point where she coupled it with her increasing necessity for quiet and rest.
The girl was tired—saddened a little, perhaps. That is the aftermath of all effort, the reaction from all attainment, the shadow that dogs knowledge. And it is the white shadow cast by Happiness.
There were other things, too, which directed her thoughts unconsciously toward the only home she ever had known.
Eddie Carter had been annoying her again. She never spoke to Annan about it. But her husband was always writing to her, now. Every few days brought begging letters, maudlin appeals, veiled threats concerning Albert Smull’s supposed attentions to her,—maundering, wandering, incoherent epistles born of the drugs he used, perhaps.
And this was not all. Little Leopold Shill, Smull’s partner, wrote to her in behalf of Smull, begging her to pardon his unpardonable offences, expressing concern over Smull’s desperate state of mind, begging her to be generous and merciful to a man whose flagrant conduct had been due to love alone—to a mighty and overwhelming passion which bewildered him and made him really irresponsible.
To Leopold Shill’s two letters she made no reply. And Shill did not write again. But Smull did. He had been writing to her twice a day. She never replied. After the first letter she destroyed the others without opening them.