that never-to-be-forgotten
thrill, and where she had slid from behind to the ground and stormed
with tears. When they dropped down into the green gloom of shadow and
green leaves toward Lonesome Cove, she had the same feeling that her
heart was being clutched by a human hand and that black night had
suddenly fallen about her, but this time she knew what it meant. She
thought then of the crowded sleeping-room, the rough beds and coarse
blankets at home; the oil-cloth, spotted with drippings from a candle,
that covered the table; the thick plates and cups; the soggy bread and
the thick bacon floating in grease; the absence of napkins, the eating
with knives and fingers and the noise Bub and her father made drinking
their coffee. But then she knew all these things in advance, and the
memories of them on her way over had prepared her for Lonesome Cove. The
conditions were definite there: she knew what it would be to face
them again--she was facing them all the way, and to her surprise the
realities had hurt her less even than they had before. Then had come the
same thrill over the garden, and now with that garden and her new room
and her piano and her books, with Uncle Billy's sister to help do the
work, and with the little changes that June was daily making in the
household, she could live her own life even over there as long as she
pleased, and then she would go out into the world again.

But all the time when she was coming over from the Gap, the way had
bristled with accusing memories of Hale--even from the chattering
creeks, the turns in the road, the sun-dappled bushes and trees and
flowers; and when she passed the big Pine that rose with such friendly
solemnity above her, the pang of it all hurt her heart and kept on
hurting her. When she walked in the garden, the flowers seemed not to
have the same spirit of gladness. It had been a dry season and they
drooped for that reason, but the melancholy of them had a sympathetic
human quality that depressed her. If she saw a bass shoot arrow-like
into deep water, if she heard a bird or saw a tree or a flower whose
name she had to recall, she thought of Hale. Do what she would, she
could not escape the ghost that stalked at her side everywhere, so like
a human presence that she felt sometimes a strange desire to turn and
speak to it. And in her room that presence was all-pervasive. The piano,
the furniture, the bits of bric-a-brac, the pictures and books--all were
eloquent w