Tokacon swaying to and fro near Donald's room. He seems to understand
grief more keenly than any cultivated mind that I have ever known, and
he never intrudes, though it takes a mighty effort for him to suppress
his own sympathy.
At last it grew quiet and we all rested though we did not sleep. The
next morning baby and I walked with Donald to the bower where we had met
him, and there we parted. Tokacon came and carried the baby back to the
bungalow and I followed later on when I felt sufficiently calm to go
about my simple duties again. I am not a connoisseur in consciences,
therefore I want days and still more days in which to think and weigh,
then maybe a decision will come to me as an inspiration.
Donald will see you as soon as he returns to New York--be honest with
him and yet beneficent.
A thousand kisses from my son and me.
Goodnight,
MARIANNE.
December 1.
Dearest Lorna:
For the last time I am writing to you from the place which is dearest to
me in all the universe. My personal things are packed and on the way to
Custer. Tokacon is waiting with his torch to set fire to my palace of
dreams.
I could not return to your world--to my old world if I thought that
other souls than ours were living in my home. The land, I have given to
my Indian with sufficient money to build a home for himself, but not one
corner of my own shall remain to be profaned by other human emotions.
Now I am sitting in the machine at a safe distance from the flames,
which amuse my son, who is wild with joy and excitement over it.
Tokacon groans and I weep, for it is a tomb in flames before us.
Ashes--ashes--everywhere--in my home and in my heart, and every where
except in the smiles of my child.
Donald has given me back my home and he has taken rooms at the
club--what people think and what people say, mean nothing to me. I shall
try bravely to construct something out of the ashes of three lives that
will be worthy of the respect of God's elect. I cannot teach myself to
forget; I can only await with patience the reawakening which for the
sake of Donald and my son, pray God, will not delay too long its coming.
I suppose the family cannot be built on a foundation of passion, because
something on earth always becomes revengeful when human beings are too
happy. I shall never try to be too happy again.
Now my memories must lie entombed in the arcana of memory. But some day
when my son is old enough to understand, I shall come back with him to
my Black Hills of Dakota, and breathe to him every sigh of my sorrow.
Then if he takes me in his arms and whispers "Precious Mother," I shall
not have loved and cherished in vain.
MARIANNE.
End of Project Gutenberg's Letters of a Dakota Divorcee, by Jane Burr