Give her strength to find the way into the sunlight white and fiery. Winter must thaw there, and these tongues of slander wither and roll up black. He loved her! Who dared to deny he loved her? Yet now he came less often. He came with gloomy face and brow old with frowns. Truth was too true! Love had learned unloving.
Stay, he loved her a little still and therefore he grieved to speak the truth. He came and came again that he might kill her gently, and lay dead love to sleep upon its broken flowers. Let her thank him for this kindness which had kept her glad a little while. Surely Death thus gently come was not a fearful visitor?
She shook. This was rage assailing her. Hot rage, this moment. This moment, icy hate. Come and gone in fierce breaths. Now storm had passed away, and she stood quiet, trembling a little.
Not to-day this message. Let him love her once more to-night. Let him kiss back her kisses, and she would be strong to-morrow.
A world rolling through its day, and she dreaming in this cool room. Wake up from dreaming. Outside sunlight woos the red earth, and bronze lizards sit upon the stones.
She showed no signs of hurt when presently she came out of the quiet and began the tasks set to do in the brief space of morning that remained. One asked her were she tired. One warned her summer was but begun, and only those who started prudently would last through to the end. She laughed and said she would cause all to look to their laurels. When lunch was ended, to prove the heat of the day had small fright for her, she renounced the verandah for her bedroom, and her cool dress for a habit. At the last moment, when there remained only the saddling, she sought out her father and told him she would be away until sundown. The old man cocked his head to one side in dismay.
"What's taken ye, girl?" he said. "Why not wait for evening and the cool?"
"I'm sick of indoors. I am going now, father."
"Well, it's you to do the riding, girl, and not me. Don't be stopping out after sunset and scarin' us. Where are you going?"
"To the river."