She hated the North,
she wished to be gone from it, and most of all she hated Bill Wagstaff
for constraining her presence there. In six months she had not seen a
white face, nor spoken to a woman of her own blood. Out beyond that
sea of forest lay the big, active world in which she belonged, of which
she was a part, and she felt that she must get somewhere, do something,
or go mad.
All the heaviness of heart, all the resentment she had felt in the
first few days when she followed him perforce away from Cariboo
Meadows, came back to her with redoubled force that forenoon. She went
back into the house, now gloomy without a fire, slumped forlornly into
a chair, and cried herself into a condition approaching hysteria. And
she was sitting there, her head bowed on her hands, when Bill returned
from his hunting. The sun sent a shaft through the south window, a
shaft which rested on her drooping head. Roaring Bill walked softly up
behind her and put his hand on her shoulder.
"What is it, little person?" he asked gently.
She refused to answer.
"Say," he bent a little lower, "you know what the Tentmaker said:
"'Come fill the cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling;
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.
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