t. "It is good for both
her body and her mind, this talking," he muttered.

The woman began telling of an incident that had
happened one afternoon a few months after her marriage.
Her voice became steadier. "In the late afternoon I
went for a drive alone," she said. "I had a buggy and a
little grey pony I kept in Moyer's Livery. Tom was
painting and repapering rooms in the hotel. He wanted
money and I was trying to make up my mind to tell him
about the eight hundred dollars father had given to me.
I couldn't decide to do it. I didn't like him well
enough. There was always paint on his hands and face
during those days and he smelled of paint. He was
trying to fix up the old hotel, and make it new and
smart."

The excited woman sat up very straight in her chair and
made a quick girlish movement with her hand as she told
of the drive alone on the spring afternoon. "It was
cloudy and a storm threatened," she said. "Black clouds
made the green of the trees and the grass stand out so
that the colors hurt my eyes. I went out Trunion Pike a
mile or more and then turned into a side road. The
little horse went quickly along up hill and down. I was
impatient. Thoughts came and I wanted to get away from
my thoughts. I began to beat the horse. The black
clouds settled down and it began to rain. I wanted to
go at a terrible speed, to drive on and on forever. I
wanted to get out of town, out of my clothes, out of my
marriage, out of my body, out of everything. I almost
killed the horse, making him run, and when he could not
run any more I got out of the buggy and ran afoot into
the darkness until I fell and hurt my side. I wanted to
run away from everything but I wanted to run towards
something too. Don't you see, dear, how it was?"

Elizabeth sprang out of the chair and began to walk
about in the office. She walked as Doctor Reefy thought
he had never seen anyone walk before. To her whole body
there was a swing, a rhythm that intoxicated him. When
she came and knelt on the floor beside his chair he
took her into his arms and began to kiss her
passionately. "I cried all the way home," she said, as
she tried to continue the story of her wild ride, but
he did not listen. "You dear! You lovely dear! Oh you
lovely dear!" he muttered and thought he held in his
arms not the tired-out woman of forty-one but a lovely
and innocent girl who had been able by some miracle to
project herself out of the husk of the body of the
tired-ou