She uttered no complaint, even to Simon. The outburst that followed Lounsbury's return was her first and last. She questioned now if her suffering justified a lament. In this, she resembled her mother. A woman, coming to the section-house one torrid day, remarked wonderingly that Mrs. Lancaster gave "nary a whimper." The latter looked up with a smile. "I don't think I'm sick enough," she said. "Other people, worse off, have a right to groan." Dallas, certain that Marylyn's heartache was the keener, would not be behindhand in restraint. And her sister's happiness, forethought, and desire to please, all drove the thrust of penitence to the hilt, and turned the knife in that secret wound. She found no solace in Marylyn's friends of the calico covers. Her thoughts were too tempestuous for that. They were like milling cattle. Around and around they tore, mingling and warring, but stilling in the end to follow the only course--self-denial. Once so rebellious, she was growing meek at last--meek and full of contrition. She was coming to dwell more too, on the lessons that the evangelist had taught her: She was coming to think of leaning where David Bond had leaned--she, who had always been a prop. There was the old terror that had stalked beside her down to her mother's death. She had fought her way with it, and the conflict had given her strength. There was the jealousy that had smirched her sister-love. She had fought it, too, and bitterly, scorning it because she knew it for a hateful inheritance. Now was come a third misery, and the worst. She saw herself as a traitor. This was not mere reproach. It was the torture of a stricken conscience. Her face grew thin, her hand unsteady, her eyes wore a hunted look. At night, hers were the scalding tears that dampened the pillow. And so the days went by. Whatever pangs of remorse, whatever longing she endured, she remained faithful to the resolution that she would not give way to temptation again. But every night brought the lonely watcher to the swale. CHAPTER XXXIII THE END OF A DREAM The dark of the moon was come. All that day the sun had baked, and the steady south blow had been like the draught of an oven. As evening came, brushing a glory of red from the sky, the wind quickened, instead of lulling, and fetched up clouds that rested on the ridge-tops and roofed the wide valley. Through these not a star showed. But now and then, for an instant, the post sprang into sight out of the blackness to the weird play of the heat-lightning.