She sighed. "That is when I become a greater mystery--even to myself, I
fear," she added in a murmur too low for him to catch.
They rode on in silence for a little space more. The night shadows were
flowing down between the trees like vapour. The girl of her own accord
returned to the subject.
"You are greatly to be envied," she said a little sadly, "for you are
really young. I am old, oh, very, very old! You have trust and
confidence. I have not. I can sympathize; I can understand. But that
is all. There is something within me that binds all my emotions so fast
that I can not give way to them. I want to. I wish I could. But it is
getting harder and harder for me to think of absolutely trusting, in
the sense of giving out the self that is my own. Ah, but you are to be
envied! You have saved up and accumulated the beautiful in your nature.
I have wasted mine, and now I sit by the roadside and cry for it. My
only hope and prayer is that a higher and better something will be
given me in place of the wasted, and yet I have no right to expect it.
Silly, isn't it?" she concluded bitterly.
Bennington made no reply.
They drew near the gulch, and could hear the mellow sound of bells as
the town herd defiled slowly down it toward town.
"We part here," the young man broke the long silence. "When do I see
you again?"
"I do not know."
"To-morrow?"
"No."
"Day after?"
The girl shook herself from a reverie. "If you want me to believe you,
come every afternoon to the Rock, and wait. Some day I will meet you
there."
She was gone.