All his life he had abided by the law,
walked uprightly, done his best. Was he to be smitten now through no
fault of his own? It was all a horrible dream, and presently there
would be an awakening with Susan beside him as she had been in the
first calm weeks of their betrothal. The sweetness of those days
returned to him with the intolerable pang of a fair time, long past and
never to come again. He threw his head back as if in a paroxysm of
pain. It could not be and yet in his heart he knew it was true. In
the grip of his torment he thought of the God that watching over Israel
slumbered not nor slept. With his eyes on the implacable sky he tried
to pray, tried to drag down from the empty gulf of air the help that
would bring back his lost happiness.
At Susan's first waking movement he started and turned his head toward
her. She saw him, averted her face, and began the preparations for the
meal. He lay watching her and he knew that her avoidance of his glance
was intentional. He also saw that her manner of preoccupied bustle was
affected. She was pale, her face set in hard lines.
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