remembers seeing me at Dick Tanner's door?" "Not likely, perhaps--but
possible--quite possible."

And while this question and answer passed through the brain, the woman
sitting up in bed seemed to be transported to a howling wintry scene of
whirling snow--a November twilight--and against that background, the hood
of a covered wagon, a boy holding the reins, the heavy cape on his
shoulders white with snow, the lamps of the wagon shining dimly on him,
and making a kind of luminous mist round the cart. She heard a parley,
saw a tall and slender man with fair hair go out to the boy with hot
milk and bread, caught directions as to the road, and saw herself as a
half-hidden figure in the partially open door.

And then afterwards--the warm farm kitchen shutting out the storm--a man
at her knees--his arms round her--his kisses on her cheek.

And again the irrevocableness of it closed down upon her. It could
_never_ be undone: that was the terrible commonplace which held her in
its grasp. It could never be wiped out from one human mind, which must
bear the burden of it as best it could, till gradually--steadily--the
life, had been killed out of the ugly, haunting thing, and it had been
buried--drowned, out of sight and memory.

But the piteous dialogue began again.

"How _could_ I have resisted? I was so miserable--so lonely--so weak!"
"You didn't love him!" "No--but I was alone in the world." "Well, then,
tell George Ellesborough--he is a reasonable man--he would understand."
"I can't--I _can't_! I have deceived him up till now by passing as
unmarried. If I confess this, too, there will be no chance for me. He'll
never trust me in anything!--he'll suspect everything I do or say--even
if he goes on loving me. And I couldn't bear it!--nor could he."

And so at last the inward debate wore itself out, and sleep, sudden and
deep, came down upon Rachel Henderson. When she woke in the morning it
was to cleared skies both in her own mind and in the physical world. The
nightmare through which she had passed seemed to her now unreal, even a
little absurd. Her nerves were quieted by sleep, and she saw plainly what
she had to do. That "old, unhappy, far-off thing" lurking in the
innermost depth of memory had nothing more to do with her. She would look
it calmly in the face, and put it finally--for ever--away. But of her
marriage she would tell everything--everything!--to George Ellesborough,
and he should deal with her as he pleased.