After awhile she heard him come back, heard the
sound of violent brushing, heard him kick things and swear, drop things,
bundle things about. She sat down on her trunk suddenly weak as she
realized what she had done. She had never thought of being married
before; marriage seemed a thing for elderly people; there seemed
something ungallant, something a little dragging about marriage that
rather frightened her. Her mother's marriage, she was beginning to
understand, had been a thing of horror. She thought of those stifled
cries in the night at the old farm, cries that she had thought meant
that ghosts were walking; she heard with terrible distinctness the voice
of the Edinburgh specialist as he said, "In my opinion the injury was
caused by a blow--a blow, Mr. Lashcairn." Then, quite suddenly she
laughed. It was quite amusing to think of Louis's making anyone ill by
a blow.
"He'd never have fought Ole Fred if they hadn't both been drunk," she
said slowly, staring at the boards of the floor, and her quick
imagination showed her the two of them, fighting ignobly, all dust and
sweat and ill-aimed blows. They could only hurt each other because both
were too unsteady to dodge futile lungings. There was nothing of the
Berserk about Louis.
Panic came to her. The things she realized about marriage were that it
was irrevocable, and that it meant a frighteningly close proximity; and
in that swift vision of Louis's fight--even though it had been in
defence of her--she had realized that it was utterly impossible for
her to be with him for the rest of her life.
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