The Folks

IV. After the End of the Story

the house. She couldn't even throw herself into the stream and let the shallow water cover her. Bruce's words stopped her-the sick remembrance of the suffering in his voice. That was more to her than her own impulse. But she didn't care what she did. She was beyond that. It seemed to her truly that the end of the world had come. She lay flat down on the rough ground in the chill mountain night while her suffering seemed to bear her somewhere-she didn't know where.••• She dug her fingers into the earth. There was a tinge of light over the mountains now. Cars were going past. Someone would look over and see her-perhaps try to come to her aid, ask her what was the matter. She felt dragged out now, not alive. But if she were going to die, she didn't want to be found here. She got up, sauntering as if she had just come into the garden for some flowers, went into the house and stealthily closed the door, and lay down on the bed. IV. AFTER THE END OF THE STORY M ARGOT woke up with a sense of rest. It was like a dream to be back in her old room. Her own curtains were at the window, carefully laundered; and the rickety little desk stood locked as she had left it. The folks had kept everything for her exactly as it had been before-hoping, she supposed, that she would finally come home. She felt the blessed ease of lying in her bed and letting things go. The shaded room, with its closed door, now seemed a refuge. But this half-pleasant sensation lasted for only a few seconds . Now she was awake, and already the sharp grind of pain was beginning-in her mind, in her breast . . . somewhere. She felt the empty horror of lying here alone. Hunger for Bruce consumed her. She would have screamed out if she could -only it was too sharp and absorbing for her to make a cry. It took all the life she had just to lie and feel and contemplate 449 its completeness. There was an interval when again it seemed to Margot that she simply could not live on from moment to moment. It passed-more or less. Suddenly she got out of bed. She had heard sounds downstairs . Bun dashed into the house and out again with a slam of the front door. The sound hurt Margot, wounded her with its careless ease. It said that to Bun this place was horne. And to her it wasn't. No place could be. She sat hunched in pain on the edge of the bed seeing the white walls of the adobe house that no longer belonged to her-not the house, nor the dreamy mountains, nor the little shallow stream. There was no use in dressing, in doing anything, with Bruce gone from her life. It had lost both center and background. Every time that Margot looked at her existence she realized more the extent of the devastation. But another sound made her get up quickly again and act to herself as if she had been dressing all this time. If she didn't hurry, mother would come up to see what was the matter. Anything was better than breaking down before the folks. That painful, hard determination was all that kept her up now. It was all that was left of her pride. She knew that her mother didn't entirely believe in her account of the trip, although mother tried :md pretended, resolved to have everything beautiful between them this time. She had told mother that she had gone West with some friends of Grimmie's. "How nice!" mother had dutifully said. If she could have seen this last crowd-! Hec, her gallant suitor, who had expected to spend his nights with her, thinking that of course he could do as he pleased with a girl from New York who was running around alone out West. Rod, no doubt, had told him about Bruce, and put his own sweet interpretation upon the story. And no doubt about Lee, too, and a few other things ... Ugh! When Margot had been with strangers she had longed for someone of her own; but here at home, meeting all these eyes, she wanted strangers again. She dressed as quickly as she could, shuddering away from her memories of this...