In the gray dawn Carley dragged her bruised and aching body back to her
tent, and, fastening the door, she threw off wet clothes and boots and fell
upon her bed. Slumber of exhaustion came to her.
When she awoke the tent was light and the moving shadows of cedar boughs on
the white canvas told that the sun was straight above. Carley ached as
never before. A deep pang seemed invested in every bone. Her heart felt
swollen out of proportion to its space in her breast. Her breathing came
slow and it hurt. Her blood was sluggish. Suddenly she shut her eyes. She
loathed the light of day. What was it that had happened?
Then the brutal truth flashed over her again, in aspect new, with all the
old bitterness. For an instant she experienced a suffocating sensation as
if the canvas had sagged under the burden of heavy air and was crushing her
breast and heart. Then wave after wave of emotion swept over her. The storm
winds of grief and passion were loosened again. And she writhed in her
misery.
Some one knocked on her door. The Mexican woman called anxiously. Carley
awoke to the fact that her presence was not solitary on the physical earth,
even if her soul seemed stricken to eternal loneliness.
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