She lay there until energy supplanted shock.  Then she rose to rush into the darkest shadows of the cedars, to grope here and there, hanging her head, wringing her hands, beating her breast.  “It can’t be true,” she cried.  “Not after my struggle—­my victory—­not now!” But there had been no victory.  And now it was too late.  She was betrayed, ruined, lost.  That wonderful love had wrought transformation in her—­and now havoc.  Once she fell against the branches of a thick cedar that upheld her.  The fragrance which had been sweet was now bitter.  Life that had been bliss was now hateful!  She could not keep still for a single moment.

Black night, cedars, brush, rocks, washes, seemed not to obstruct her.  In a frenzy she rushed on, tearing her dress, her hands, her hair.  Violence of some kind was imperative.  All at once a pale gleaming open space, shimmering under the stars, lay before her.  It was water.  Deep Lake!  And instantly a hideous terrible longing to destroy herself obsessed her.  She had no fear.  She could have welcomed the cold, slimy depths that meant oblivion.  But could they really bring oblivion?  A year ago she would have believed so, and would no longer have endured such agony.  She had changed.  A cursed strength had come to her, and it was this strength that now augmented her torture.  She flung wide her arms to the pitiless white stars and looked up at them.  “My hope, my faith, my love have failed me,” she whispered.  “They have been a lie.  I went through hell for them.  And now I’ve nothing to live for....  Oh, let me end it all!”

If she prayed to the stars for mercy, it was denied her.  Passionlessly they blazed on.  But she could not kill herself.  In that hour death would have been the only relief and peace left to her.  Stricken by the cruelty of her fate, she fell back against the stones and gave up to grief.  Nothing was left but fierce pain.  The youth and vitality and intensity of her then locked arms with anguish and torment and a cheated, unsatisfied love.  Strength of mind and body involuntarily resisted the ravages of this catastrophe.  Will power seemed nothing, but the flesh of her, that medium of exquisite sensation, so full of life, so prone to joy, refused to surrender.  The part of her that felt fought terribly for its heritage.

All night long Carley lay there.  The crescent moon went down, the stars moved on their course, the coyotes ceased to wail, the wind died away, the lapping of the waves along the lake shore wore to gentle splash, the whispering of the insects stopped as the cold of dawn approached.  The darkest hour fell—­hour of silence, solitude, and melancholy, when the desert lay tranced, cold, waiting, mournful without light of moon or stars or sun.

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.