If a mere wife had wished to sleep
out-of-doors in that pelting rain, it would not have mattered, but Tietjens was
a dog, and therefore the better animal. I looked at Strickland, expecting to
see him flog her with a whip. He smiled queerly, as a man would smile after
telling some hideous domestic tragedy. "She has done this ever since I moved in
here."
The dog was Strickland's dog, so I said nothing, but I felt all that Strickland
felt in being made light of. Tietjens encamped outside my bedroom window, and
storm after storm came up, thundered on the thatch, and died away. The
lightning spattered the sky as a thrown egg spattered a barn door, but the
light was pale blue, not yellow; and looking through my slit bamboo blinds, I
could see the great dog standing, not sleeping, in the veranda, the hackles
alift on her back, and her feet planted as tensely as the drawn wire rope of a
suspension bridge. In the very short pauses of the thunder I tried to sleep,
but it seemed that some one wanted me very badly. He, whoever he was, was
trying to call me by name, but his voice was no more than a husky whisper. Then
the thunder ceased and Tietjens went into the garden and howled at the low
moon. Somebody tried to open my door, and walked about and through the house,
and stood breathing heavily in the verandas, and just when I was falling asleep
I fancied that I heard a wild hammering and clamoring above my head or on the
door.
Pages:
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296