She had no idea of what she was doing or where she was going; the terror of the scene still remained luridly before her eyes; the shouting of the crowd was in her ears; an indescribable fear of Brandes filled her—a growing horror of this man who had denied that he had married her. And the instinct of a frightened and bewildered child drove her into blind flight, anywhere to escape this hideous, incomprehensible scene behind her.
Hurrying on, alternately confused and dazzled in the patches of darkness and flaring light, clutched at and followed by a terrible fear, she found herself halted on the curbstone of an avenue through which lighted tramcars were passing. A man spoke to her, came closer; and she turned desperately and hurried across a street where other people were crossing.
From overhead sounded the roaring dissonance of an elevated train; on either side of her phantom shapes swarmed—figures which moved everywhere around her, now illumined by shop windows, now silhouetted against them. And always through the deafening confusion in her brain, the dismay, the stupefaction, one dreadful fear dominated—the fear of Brandes—the dread and horror of this Judas who had denied her.
She could not drive the scene from her mind—the never-to-be forgotten picture where he stood with blood from his cut lip striping his fat chin. She heard his voice denying her through swollen lips that scarcely moved—denying that he had married her. 118
And in her ears still sounded the other voice—the terrible words of the woman who had struck him—an unsteady, unreal voice accusing him; and her brain throbbed with the horrible repetition: “Dirty dog—dirty dog—dirty dog––” until, almost out of her mind, she dropped her bag and clapped both hands over her ears.
One or two men stared at her. A taxi driver came from beside his car and asked her if she was ill. But she caught up her suitcase and hurried on without answering.
She was very tired. She had come to the end of the lighted avenue. There was darkness ahead, a wall, trees, and electric lights sparkling among the foliage.
Perhaps the sudden glimpse of a wide and star-set sky quieted her, calmed her. Freed suddenly from the cañon of the city’s streets, the unreasoning panic of a trapped thing subsided a little.
Her arm ached; she shifted the suitcase to her other hand and looked across at the trees and at the high stars above, striving desperately for self-command.