CHAPTER XLI

Valancy looked dully about her old room. It, too, was so exactly the same that it seemed almost impossible to believe in the changes that had come to her since she had last slept in it. It seemed—somehow—indecent that it should be so much the same. There was Queen Louise everlastingly¹ coming down the stairway, and nobody had let the forlorn puppy in out of the rain. Here was the purple paper blind and the greenish mirror. Outside, the old carriage-shop with its blatant² advertisements. Beyond it, the station with the same derelicts and flirtatious³ flappers.

Here the old life waited for her, like some grim ogre that bided⁴ his time and licked his chops. A monstrous⁵ horror of it suddenly possessed⁶ her. When night fell and she had undressed and got into bed, the merciful numbness⁷ passed away and she lay in anguish⁸ and thought of her island under the stars. The camp-fires—all their little household jokes and phrases and catch words—their furry⁹ beautiful cats—the lights agleam on the fairy islands—canoes skimming over Mistawis in the magic of morning—white birches shining among the dark spruces like beautiful women’s bodies—winter snows and rose-red sunset fires—lakes drunken with moonshine—all the delights of her lost paradise. She would not let herself think of Barney. Only of these lesser¹⁰ things. She could not endure to think of Barney.

Then she thought of him inescapably. She ached for him. She wanted his arms around her—his face against hers—his whispers in her ear. She recalled all his friendly looks and quips and jests—his little compliments—his caresses¹¹. She counted them all over as a woman might count her jewels—not one did she miss from the first day they had met. These memories were all she could have now. She shut her eyes and prayed.

“Let me remember every one, God! Let me never forget one of them!”

Yet it would be better to forget. This agony of longing¹² and loneliness would not be so terrible if one could forget. And Ethel Traverse. That shimmering¹³ witch woman with her white skin and black eyes and shining hair. The woman Barney had loved. The woman whom he still loved. Hadn’t he told her he never changed his mind? Who was waiting for him in Montreal. Who was the right wife for a rich and famous man. Barney would marry her, of course, when he got his divorce. How Valancy hated her! And envied her! Barney had said, “I love you,” to her. Valancy had wondered what tone Barney would say “I love you” in—how his dark-blue eyes would look when he said it. Ethel Traverse knew. Valancy hated her for the knowledge—hated and envied her.

“She can never have those hours in the Blue Castle. They are mine,” thought Valancy savagely¹⁴. Ethel would never make strawberry jam or dance to old Abel’s fiddle¹⁵ or fry bacon for Barney over a camp-fire. She would never come to the little Mistawis shack¹⁶ at all.

What was Barney doing—thinking—feeling now? Had he come home and found her letter? Was he still angry with her? Or a little pitiful. Was he lying on their bed looking out on stormy Mistawis and listening to the rain streaming down on the roof? Or was he still wandering in the wilderness¹⁷, raging at the predicament in which he found himself? Hating her? Pain took her and wrung¹⁸ her like some great pitiless giant. She got up and walked the floor. Would morning never come to end this hideous¹⁹ night? And yet what could morning bring her? The old life without the old stagnation²⁰ that was at least bearable. The old life with the new memories, the new longings²¹, the new anguish.

“Oh, why can’t I die?” moaned Valancy.