They drank and then slept, sinking to oblivion as they dropped on the
ground, not waiting to undo their blankets or pick out comfortable
spots. The sun, lifting a bright eye above the earth's rim, shot its
long beams over their motionless figures, "bundles of life," alone in a
lifeless world.
David alone could not rest. Withdrawn from the others he lay in the
shadow of the wagon, watching small points in the distance with a
glance that saw nothing. All sense of pain and weakness had left him.
Physically he felt strangely light and free of sensation. With his
brain endowed with an abnormal activity he suffered an agony of spirit
so poignant that there were moments when he drew back and looked at
himself wondering how he endured it. He was suddenly broken away from
everything cherished and desirable in life. The bare and heart-rending
earth about him was as the expression of his ruined hopes. And after
these submergences in despair a tide of questions carried him to
livelier torment: Why had she done it? What had changed her? When had
she ceased to care?
All his deadened manhood revived.
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