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Martha Ostenso
Published by Good Press, 2021
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She had to struggle merely to keep her footing. Now and then tears gathered, but she was insensible to them until they fell, large and cold and startling, upon her burning cheeks. Once, abruptly, she came abreast of a heap of glowing embers beside a little creek that elbowed in toward the track. With fear-shrewd eyes she saw the forms of two or three tramps apparently sleeping about the fire. Ordinarily these casual denizens of summer would not have alarmed her. Now she walked stiffly on tiptoe until the campfire was sheathed over by distance.
Terror and joy swept her alternately. Her terror was a nameless thing, quite apart from any apprehensiveness she held concerning Rolf’s reception of her when she returned. Her joy was an unreasoning thing that sent her running breathlessly through the dark like a truant child, running for shelter, for sanctuary, into the arms of the only living being she loved. Rolf Gunther—sanctuary? Her mind fluttered timidly away from that question. It was better, she had found on this mad night, to love than to be loved. She would learn to ask no more.
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