CHAPTER XLI

Valancy looked dully about her old room. It, too, was so exactly the
same that it seemed almost impossible to believe in the changes that
had come to her since she had last slept in it. It
seemed—somehow—indecent that it should be so much the same. There was
Queen Louise everlastingly coming down the stairway, and nobody had let
the forlorn puppy in out of the rain. Here was the purple paper blind
and the greenish mirror. Outside, the old carriage-shop with its
blatant advertisements. Beyond it, the station with the same derelicts
and flirtatious flappers.

Here the old life waited for her, like some grim ogre that bided his
time and licked his chops. A monstrous horror of it suddenly possessed
her. When night fell and she had undressed and got into bed, the
merciful numbness passed away and she lay in anguish and thought of her
island under the stars. The camp-fires—all their little household jokes
and phrases and catch words—their furry beautiful cats—the lights
agleam on the fairy islands—canoes skimming over Mistawis in the magic
of morning—white birches shining among the dark spruces like beautiful
women’s bodies—winter snows and rose-red sunset fires—lakes drunken
with moonshine—all the delights of her lost paradise. She would not let
herself think of Barney. Only of these lesser things. She could not
endure to think of Barney.

Then she thought of him inescapably. She ached for him. She wanted his
arms around her—his face against hers—his whispers in her ear. She
recalled all his friendly looks and quips and jests—his little
compliments—his caresses. She counted them all over as a woman might
count her jewels—not one did she miss from the first day they had met.
These memories were all she could have now. She shut her eyes and
prayed.

“Let me remember every one, God! Let me never forget one of them!”

Yet it would be better to forget. This agony of longing and loneliness
would not be so terrible if one could forget. And Ethel Traverse. That
shimmering witch woman with her white skin and black eyes and shining
hair. The woman Barney had loved. The woman whom he still loved. Hadn’t
he told her he never changed his mind? Who was waiting for him in
Montreal. Who was the right wife for a rich and famous man. Barney
would marry her, of course, when he got his divorce. How Valancy hated
her! And envied her! Barney had said, “I love you,” to _her_. Valancy
had wondered what tone Barney would say “I love you” in—how his
dark-blue eyes would look when he said it. Ethel Traverse knew. Valancy
hated her for the knowledge—hated and envied her.

“She can never have those hours in the Blue Castle. They are _mine_,”
thought Valancy savagely. Ethel would never make strawberry jam or
dance to old Abel’s fiddle or fry bacon for Barney over a camp-fire.
She would never come to the little Mistawis shack at all.

What was Barney doing—thinking—feeling now? Had he come home and found
her letter? Was he still angry with her? Or a little pitiful. Was he
lying on their bed looking out on stormy Mistawis and listening to the
rain streaming down on the roof? Or was he still wandering in the
wilderness, raging at the predicament in which he found himself? Hating
her? Pain took her and wrung her like some great pitiless giant. She
got up and walked the floor. Would morning never come to end this
hideous night? And yet what could morning bring her? The old life
without the old stagnation that was at least bearable. The old life
with the new memories, the new longings, the new anguish.

“Oh, why can’t I die?” moaned Valancy.