“Think what it would be to you to be free.” That was what they were offering him … the return to that other world, the world he had looked down on from Thundertop.
He tried to clear his mind of anger and confusion and look at his case dispassionately. The Tracy case was plain enough; from the first, very likely, Mrs. Tracy had been bent on getting rid of him, on giving Laura Lou what she called her chance. But she was not a woman of initiative, and would probably have ended by resigning herself if some persistent influence had not pushed her forward. Upton’s—? Vance shrugged away the thought of Upton … Hayes, of course! The blood rushed to his forehead. He could hear Bunty Hayes rehearsing the scene with Mrs. Tracy. Very likely they had cooked up the anonymous letter between them. And now they were going to turn him out like a boarder whose room was wanted … that was about the way they looked at it. … “Nothing easier … slick as a button …” Hayes would say. …
Well, why not?
He lay there, stretched out on the ledge, and looked down into the nocturnal depths. In the contemplation of that widespread beauty calmer thoughts came back, little things fell away. … What had he been able to do for Laura Lou? What had she done for him? The tie between them had so quickly become a habit, an aquiescence, nothing more. Perhaps Laura Lou had been conscious of that too, perhaps she too had chafed and longed for freedom—or simply for relief from worry, for material well-being, a home of her own—all that he could never give her. His eyes filled. … What was there to prevent their both trying again?
He could not find the answer to this question. He had never heard of any reason why married people shouldn’t agree to part and begin life again if they wanted to … only he could not picture its happening to himself and Laura Lou. Whenever he tried to, it was as if a million delicate tendrils, of which he was unconscious when he and she were together, tightened about his heart and held it fast to hers, in a strange bondage closer than that of love or desire. He lay and lay there, and tried to puzzle it out, but in vain. His last conclusion was: “Of course if she really wants to be free, she shall be—” and for an instant his soul blazed again with the rekindled light of opportunity. … After that, worn out, he fell asleep on his ledge. …
It was broad daylight when he woke up, aching and hungry. His watch had stopped, but from the position of the sun he judged it must be after eight o’clock. His first craving was that of a ravenous boy—for a cup of Mrs. Tracy’s hot coffee. What was all the fuss about, anyhow? How different things looked by daylight, with the same old sun lighting up the same old daily road of duty. There was the office, there was his wife—and, oh hallelujah, there was his work! He sprang down from rock to rock, reached the road, and hurried homeward.
When he got to Mrs. Tracy’s door he ran up the steps calling out Laura Lou’s name. What nonsense it all seemed now, that ranting scene of last night! But to his astonishment the door was locked. He called again, shook the handle, banged on the panel—but no one answered. He walked around to the back of the house, expecting to find his mother-in-law among the currant bushes. “Laura Lou is sound asleep still, I suppose?” he would begin jokingly. But there was no one among the vegetables either, and the door of the back porch was also locked. Vance stepped back and threw a handful of pebbles at his wife’s window, calling out to her again. Again there was no answer.
He returned to the front door, shook and rattled it without result, and finally, disheartened, sat down on the doorstep and wondered. …
All the way down the mountain conciliatory phrases, jokes, words of endearment had crowded to his lips—anything to smooth the way back to the old life. And now he was confronted by this silent hostile house, which seemed to know nothing of him, but stared down from blank forbidding windows as if on an intruder.
An intruder? Was it possible that he was already that? By God, no! His smouldering wrath against Mrs. Tracy blazed up again. It was all her doing, whatever had happened. She wouldn’t rest till she had separated him from Laura Lou. … He was beginning to feel a sort of terror at the silent house and the unknown behind it. He saw the son of a neighbour walking down the lane, and stood up and hailed him. “See here—I’m just home, and I guess I’m locked out. Seen my womenfolk round anywhere?” he asked facetiously.
Yes, the youth said, he had; he’d met them up the lane. They were going to see if they could get Dixon’s team to take them to the station, they told him; he guessed they were taking some baggage with them, for a stay. … He grinned and loafed on, and Vance stood and looked after him without moving. It had all been planned in advance, then; they were going to the city—going straight to Bunty Hayes, no doubt! He would have secured rooms for them, where they could stay till they started for California. …
Vance walked dizzily back to the porch. It was true, then—it had really happened, this thing which was still inconceivable to him. He stood there staring about him like a man waking out of sleep; and as he did so, he noticed a suitcase and two or three insecurely tied bundles in a corner of the porch. They had already packed, then; they would come
