“We thought we’d surprise you,” said May, glancing archly about her out of bold, brilliant eyes. “Birthday surprise for you, Pat.”

CHAPTER 36

Pat sat up all that night, looking out over the quiet, unchanged fields of the farm, trying to look this hideous fact in the face. She was in the Poet’s room and she had locked the door. She would not even have Rae with her.

She could not yet believe that this had happened. At first one cannot believe in a monstrous thing. Can one ever believe it? It was a dream…a nightmare. She would waken presently. She must…or go mad.

She had been so happy that evening at twilight…so unusually, inexplicably happy, as if the gods were going to give her some wonderful gift…and now she would never be happy again. Pat was still young enough to think that when a thing like this happened you could never be happy again. Everything…everything…had changed in the twinkling of an eye. Sid was lost to her forever. The very fields she had loved now looked strange and hostile as she gazed on them. “Our inheritance is turned to strangers and our house to aliens.” She had read that verse in her Bible chapter two nights ago and shivered over the picture of desolation it presented. And now it had come true in her own life…her life that a few hours ago had seemed so full and beautiful and was now so ugly and empty.

It had been such a ghastly hour. Nobody knew what to say or do. Pat’s face seemed to wither as she looked at them…at May, flushed and triumphant under all her uneasiness, at Sid, sullen and defiant. May tried to carry the situation off brazenly, after the true Binnie fashion.

“Come, Pat, don’t look so snooty, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, even if you and I have hated each other all our lives.”

This was only too true but it was terrible to have the feeling dragged into light as nakedly as this. Pat could not answer. She turned away as if she had neither seen nor heard May and walked blindly out of the room. The only feeling she was keenly conscious of just then was a sick desire to get away from the light into a dark place where no one could see her…where she could hide like a wounded animal. May looked after her and her bold handsome face flushed crimson under Pat’s utter disregard. Her black eyes held a flame that was not good to see. But she laughed as she turned to Sid.

“She’ll get over it, honey-boy. I never expected a warm welcome from Pat, you know.”