But, singularly enough, these words meant something entirely different. Swan looked curiously at the workman and saw that he too was really somebody else. The man smiled and, leaning over, gently raised him up, and for the first time in his life Swan felt himself encircled by a woman’s arms, and he tasted a strange, delicious joy awakening deep within him that knowledge of reciprocal love which slumbers in the heart of every man.
“And you did it all for me,” she said.
“Did what?” he asked her.
“Built the road?”
“Yes,” he whispered, closing his eyes again, filled with this new strange joy.
“And now we’ll go home together to the North, where the maple leaves make a lovely pattern against the blue sky.”
He knew nothing for a minute, and then she spoke again:
“Well, it’s a good job. I’ll see that you get pushed along. The company ’ll have plenty more work; big pay, too. This business has made your name. You’re a wonderful fellow! You say you worked night as well as day?”
“For eight days, yes.”
It was Pilchard’s voice. He was talking to another man. They were leaning heavily against the rough wall of Swan’s shanty. A horrible sensation came over the sick man, that sensation experienced by men who emerge from some unnatural mental condition, who are recalled by one sentence, often by one word, which acts like a key and opens again to their terrified vision the horrible realities of actual life. Swan raised his arms to bring that woman’s face close to his, but he could not find it. He opened his eyes, and tears of weakness watered his cheeks. He was alone in the hovel knocked together by the men to hold their tools, and the work for which he had given his life was being claimed outside by another man....