But all the time when she was coming over from the Gap, the way
had bristled with accusing memories of Hale--even from the
chattering creeks, the turns in the road, the sun-dappled bushes
and trees and flowers; and when she passed the big Pine that rose
with such friendly solemnity above her, the pang of it all hurt
her heart and kept on hurting her. When she walked in the garden,
the flowers seemed not to have the same spirit of gladness. It had
been a dry season and they drooped for that reason, but the
melancholy of them had a sympathetic human quality that depressed
her. If she saw a bass shoot arrow-like into deep water, if she
heard a bird or saw a tree or a flower whose name she had to
recall, she thought of Hale. Do what she would, she could not
escape the ghost that stalked at her side everywhere, so like a
human presence that she felt sometimes a strange desire to turn
and speak to it. And in her room that presence was all-pervasive.
The piano, the furniture, the bits of bric-a-brac, the pictures
and books--all were eloquent with his thought of her--and every
night before she turned out her light she could not help lifting
her eyes to her once-favourite picture--even that Hale had
remembered--the lovers clasped in each other's arms--"At Last
Alone"--only to see it now as a mocking symbol of his beaten
hopes.
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