And at sight of all this, she felt in a moment that she was saved. For where could she choose to be rather than here, in a place with so much beauty, so near at hand—so much beauty that she could see every day.
How could it be that no one had ever told her of this? She sat down on a stone and rested there a long while, drinking in the light with her eyes. Her eyes wandered over the wide expanse, looking as far as they pleased, like birds released from a close cage.
And she thanked God for her home, and for the sea, so great and strong and clean, so near her.
She must have sat there long without speaking. When she looked up, the young workman had gone.
Truth to tell, she was pleased at this. She could always thank him, another time. It was pleasanter now to be alone.
She felt stronger now, and more hopeful—better able to fight against the stifling sense of something threatening that hung over the plain.
Suddenly she remembered her husband—he might be anxious about her. And she rose to go home, to tell him that she was better now, and happier. And to thank him for his sternness in sending her out to face her trouble boldly.
[SAILING]
IT WAS a Sunday morning in late October. A heavy wind came sweeping up from the south, from lands where the air was yet warm, where roses still budded and bloomed, where the vines were newly stripped, and the juice of the grape foamed in the presses.
The heavy south wind spoke with a strange, disquieting sound. Listening to it, one felt confused, as if hearing a stranger speak in some foreign tongue. Who could say what it was trying to tell—whether some great secret, or merely a whisper of all the yellowing trees, the fallen wings of butterflies, the empty nests, it had passed on its way?