inger.
A cold sweat broke over him. He drew on his stockings again, lifted the
outer counterpane, and, half undressed, crept under it, wrapping its
corner around his maimed hand, as if to hide it from the light. Yet he
felt that he saw things dimly; there was a moisture on his cheeks and
eyelids he could not account for; it must be the whiskey "coming out."

His wife lay very still; she scarcely seemed to breathe. What if she
should never breathe again, but die as the old Sue he knew, the lanky
girl he had married, unchanged and uncontaminated? It would be better
than this. Yet at the same moment the picture was before him of her
pretty simulation of the barkeeper, of her white bared arms and laughing
eyes, all so new, so fresh to him! He tried to listen to the slow
ticking of the clock, the occasional stirring of air through the house,
and the movement, like a deep sigh, which was the regular, inarticulate
speech of the lonely plain beyond, and quite distinct from the evening
breeze. He had heard it often, but, like so many things he had learned
that day, he never seemed to have caught its meaning before. Then,
perhaps, it was his supine position, perhaps some cumulative effect of
the whiskey he had taken, but all this presently became confused and
whirling. Out of its gyrations he tried to grasp something, to hear
voices that called him to "wake," and in the midst of it he fell into a
profound sleep.

The clock ticked, the wind sighed, the woman at his side lay motionless
for many minutes.

Then the deputy on the kitchen floor rolled over with an appalling
snort, struggled, stretched himself, and awoke. A healthy animal, he had
shaken off the fumes of liquor with a dry tongue and a thirst for water
and fresh air. He raised his knees and rubbed his eyes. The water bucket
was missing from the corner. Well, he knew where the spring was, and a
turn out of the close and stifling kitchen would do him good. He
yawned, put on his boots softly, opened the back door, and stepped out.
Everything was dark, but above and around him, to the very level of his
feet, all apparently pricked with bright stars. The bulk of the barn
rose dimly before him on the right, to the left was the spring. He
reached it, drank, dipped his head and hands in it, and arose refreshed.
The dry, wholesome breath that blew over this flat disk around him,
rimmed with stars, did the rest. He began to saunter slowly back,
the only reminiscence of his eveni