Yes, it would really be lots nicer if there were only women and children in the world.  Gracious! how that lightning made her jump!  The storm had got there quicker’n she’d thought.  But the butter had come, so it was all right.

PART III

CHAPTER XVIII

BEFORE THE DAWN

July 21.

Neale had lain so long with his eyes on the place where the window ought to be, that finally he was half persuaded he could see it, a faintly paler square against the black of the room.  Very soon dawn would come in that window, and another day would begin.

At the thought the muscles of his forearms contracted, drawing his fingers into rigidly clenched fists, and for a moment he did not breathe.

Then he conquered it again; threw off the worst of the pain that had sprung upon him when he had wakened suddenly, hours before, with the fear at last there before him, visible in the darkness.

What was this like?  Where before had he endured this eternity of waiting?  Yes, it was in France, the night when they waited for the attack to break, every man haggard with the tension, from dark till just before dawn.

He lay still, feeling Marise’s breathing faintly stirring the bed.

There in France it had been a strain almost beyond human power to keep from rushing out of the trenches with bayonets fixed, to meet the threatened danger, to beat it back, to conquer it, or to die and escape the suspense.  Now there was the same strain.  He had the weapons in his hands, weapons of passion, and indignation and entreaty and reproach, against which Marise would not stand for a moment.

But there in France that would have meant possibly an insignificant local success and the greater victory all along the line imperiled.  And here that was true again.  There hadn’t been anything to do then but wait.  There was nothing to do now but wait.

Yes, but it was harder to wait now!  There in France they had at least known that finally the suspense would end in the fury of combat.  They would have the chance to resist, to conquer, to impose their will.  And now there was no active part for him.  He must wait on, and hold back his hand from the attack which would give him the appearance of victory, and which would mean everlasting defeat for him, for Marise, the death and ruin of what they had tried to be for each other, to build up out of their life together.

What did he mean by that?  Wasn’t he fooling himself with words, with priggish phrases?  It was so easy to do that.  And he was so mortally fatigued with this struggle in the dark.  He had been thinking about it so deeply, so desperately, ever since he had faced it there, squarely, those endless black hours ago.  He might have lost his way.

Now, once more, slowly, step by step, once more over the terrible road that led him here.  Perhaps there was another way he had overlooked.  Perhaps this time it would lead him to something less intolerable.  Quiet now, steady, all that he had of courage and honesty and knowledge of Marise, and of life, and of himself, put to work.