All the night which followed a sentinel paced back and forth in front of the ranch house door; back and forth like an automaton, back and forth in a motion that seemed perpetual.  Within the tiny low-ceiled room, in the fulness of time, the girl sobbed herself into a fitful sleep; but not once did the sentinel pause to rest, not once in those dragging hours before day did he relax.  With the coming of the first trace of light he halted, and on silent moccasined feet stole within.  But again he only remained for moments, and when he returned it was merely to stride away to the stable.  Within the space of minutes, before the east had fairly begun to grow red, silently as he did everything, he rode away astride the mouse-coloured cayuse into the darkness to the west.

* * * * *

It was broad day when the girl awoke, and then with a vague sense of depression and of impending evil.  The door was open and the bright morning light flooded the room.  Beyond the entrance stretched the open prairie:  an endless sea of green with a tiny brown island, her own dooryard, in the foreground.  With dull listlessness, the girl propped herself up in bed and sat looking about her.  Absently, aimlessly, her eyes passed from one familiar object to another.  Without any definite conception of why or of where, she was conscious of an impression of change in the material world about her, a change that corresponded to the mental crisis that had so recently taken place.  Glad as was the sunshine without this morning, in her it aroused no answering joy.  Ubiquitous as was the vivid surrounding life, its message passed her by.  Like a haze enveloping, dulling all things, was a haunting memory of the past night and of what it had meant.  As a traveller lost in this fog, she lay staring about, indecisive which way to move, idly waiting for light.  Ordinarily action itself would have offered a solution of the problem, would have served at least as a diversion; but this morning she was strangely listless, strangely indifferent.  There seemed to her no adequate reason for rising, no definite object in doing anything more than she was doing.  In conformity she pulled the pillow higher and, lifting herself wearily, dropped her chin into her palm and lay with wide-open eyes staring aimlessly away.

Just how long she remained there so, she did not know.  The doorway faced south, and bit by bit the bar of sunlight that had entered therein began moving to the left across the floor.  Unconsciously, for the lack of anything better to do, she watched its advance.  It fell upon a tiny shelf against the wall, littered with a collection of papers and magazines; and the reflected light from the white sheets glared in her eyes.  It came to the supper table of the night before, the table she had not cleared, and like an accusing hand, lay directed at the evidence of her own slothfulness.  On it went with the passing time, on and on; crossed a bare spot on the uncarpeted floor, and like a live thing, began climbing the wall beyond.