Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/129

 would never see him again. They could not go on like this. Perhaps if she did not kill herself, Uriah would kill her. She had thought of late that there was a look of cold murder in his eye. They could not go on like this.

She did not know how long she lay thus tormenting herself, but toward morning she rose, thinking to go into the kitchen for a drink of water from the pail that stood there. It was not clear sparkling water, but the dead stale water of the flat country. In the darkness she made her way through the common room into the kitchen. She found the pail. She was raising the dipper to her hot parched lips when there was a sound of a door opening. She pressed against the wall listening and presently someone crossed the common room and entered the kitchen. She thought, "It may be Uriah coming to kill me." And then with a sudden sick feeling, "It may be Leander. He, too, could not sleep." But in the blackness she could not make certain.

She heard the figure in the dark fumbling at the latch of the kitchen door. The door opened against the blue of the prairie night and she saw that it was Leander. He was dressed and in his hand he carried his carpet-bag. He was going away and she would never see him again. She grew cold and trembled and wanted to cry out, "Don't go, Leander. Don't go. I am here waiting for you. Nothing makes any difference." He must not go away. He must not go away.

And then, although she had not cried out, he hesitated for a moment as if he had felt her standing there in the darkness, and putting down the bag