Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/184

 every Why unanswered, and itself knows not where to lay its head. I feel a deadly certainty in some moments that the wild world contains not one moment of rest for me, that there will never be any rest, that my woman's-soul will go on asking long, long centuries after my woman's-body is laid in its grave.

I felt this in the Gray Dawn this morning, but the gray charitable mantle softened it. Always I feel most acutely in the Gray Dawn, but always there is the thing to soften it.

The gray atmosphere was charged. There was a tense electrical thrill in the cold, soft air. My nerves were keenly alive. But the gray curtain was mercifully there. I did not feel too much.

How I wished the yellow, beautiful sun would never more come up over the edge to show me my nearer anguish!

"Stay with me, stay with me, soft Gray Dawn," implored every one of my tiny lives. "Let me forget. Let