"Who is that?" I asked.
"It's me--Deolda."
She went to the window and peered out into the storm, as though she were
trying to penetrate its mystery. I couldn't bear her standing there; it
was as if I could hear her heart bleed. It was as if for a while I had
become fused with her and her love for Johnny Deutra and with all the
dark things that had happened in our house this afternoon. I got out of
bed and went to her and put my hand in hers. If she'd only cried, or if
she'd only spoken I could have stood it; if she'd said in words what was
going on inside her mind. But she sat there with her hand cold in mine,
staring into the storm through all the long hours of the night.
Toward the end I was so tired that my mind went to sleep in that way
your mind can when your body stays awake and everything seems far off
and like things happening in a nightmare except that you know they're
real. At last daylight broke, very pale, threatening, and slate colored.
Deolda got up and began padding up and down the floor, back and forth,
like a soul in torment.
About ten o'clock old Conboy came in.
"I got the license, Deolda," he said.
"All right," said Deolda, "all right--go away." And she kept on padding
up and down the room like a leopard in a cage.
Conboy beckoned my aunt out into the entry. I followed.
"What ails her?" he asked.
"I guess she thinks she sent Johnny Deutra to his grave," said my aunt.
Conboy peered in the door at Deolda. Her face looked like a yellow mask
of death with her black hair hanging around her.
"God!" he said, in a whisper. "_She cares!_" I don't believe it had
dawned on him before that she was anything but a wild devil.
All that day the _Anita_ wasn't heard from. That night I was tired out
and went to bed. But I couldn't sleep; Deolda sat staring out into the
dark as she had the night before.
Next morning I was standing outside the house when one of Deolda's
brothers came tearing along. It was Joe, the youngest of one-armed
Manel's brood, a boy of sixteen who worked in the fish factory.
"Deolda!" he yelled. "Deolda, Johnny's all right!"