To
live and love and be loved, with all that had ever seemed hateful and
sordid and mean thrust into a remote background. It was almost too
good to be true, she told herself. Yet it was indubitably true. And
she was grateful for the fact. Touches of the unavoidable bitterness
of life had taught her the worth of days that could be treasured in the
memory.
Occasionally she would visualize the cabin drowsing lifeless in its
emerald setting, haunted by the rabbits that played timidly about in
the twilight, or perhaps a wandering deer peering his wide-eyed
curiosity from the timber's edge. The books and rugs and curtains were
stowed in boxes and bundles and hung by wires to the ridge log to keep
them from the busy bush-tailed rats. Everything was done up carefully
and put away for safekeeping, as became a house that is to be long
untenanted.
The mother instinct to keep a nest snug and cozy gave her a tiny pang
over the abandoned home. The dust of many months would gather on the
empty chairs and shelves. Still it was only a passing absence. They
would come back, with treasure wrested from the strong box of the wild.
Surely Fortune could not forbear smiling on a mate like hers?
There was no monotony in the passing days.
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