Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/208

196 she went out and, in the blistering heat under which the streets lay sweltering, walked aimlessly. If fatigue overcame her she sat down on one of the benches in the little plazas that dot the city, and there a graceful, listless figure slipped back over the intervening gulf to the days when the sunshine had been bright and her own heart was full of it.

Sometimes rebellion against the fate which had shut her out from happiness rose within her. A beloved companionship, no matter at what cost, was better than this waste of desolation. One life is all of which we are sure; why not, then, seize what we can of that one? How terrible, in the darkness of death, to realize that we have lost all that might have made this world so rich and sweet! Oh, the frightful thoughts of seeing at the end that we have relinquished joy and love for a dream, for nothing! For the first time in a life singularly free from event or developing experience, she met that dark second self which dwells in each of us.

So the tempter whispered his old words. She closed her ears to them with fear and aversion. But they returned, coming upon her persuasively in moments of deadly depression and disgust of life, coming upon her with comforting declarations of harmlessness, coming upon her with challenging queries as to their wrong.