"They have been a lie. I went through hell for them. And now
I've nothing to live for.... Oh, let me end it all!"
If she prayed to the stars for mercy, it was denied her. Passionlessly they
blazed on. But she could not kill herself. In that hour death would have
been the only relief and peace left to her. Stricken by the cruelty of her
fate, she fell back against the stones and gave up to grief. Nothing was
left but fierce pain. The youth and vitality and intensity of her then
locked arms with anguish and torment and a cheated, unsatisfied love.
Strength of mind and body involuntarily resisted the ravages of this
catastrophe. Will power seemed nothing, but the flesh of her, that medium
of exquisite sensation, so full of life, so prone to joy, refused to
surrender. The part of her that felt fought terribly for its heritage.
All night long Carley lay there. The crescent moon went down, the stars
moved on their course, the coyotes ceased to wail, the wind died away, the
lapping of the waves along the lake shore wore to gentle splash, the
whispering of the insects stopped as the cold of dawn approached. The
darkest hour fell--hour of silence, solitude, and melancholy, when the
desert lay tranced, cold, waiting, mournful without light of moon or stars
or sun.
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