He tossed and tossed in convulsive starts till the cane bed creaked and cried. He muttered incessantly, words without end, rapid as the tick of a telegraphic receiver. At times she could understand.
"The silence!" he would say; "the silence!"
He stopped a moment, his brows frowned, then the words came again, slow, as in painful mental analysis. "Their ways are different," he said; "their language incomprehensible. It is silence—God, what silence!"
He rose to a sitting posture and listened long, intently. "Nothing," he said, falling back, discouraged; "silence," he whispered.
Then, "And the mountain, the musty mountain, how it weighs!"
He was quiet for a long while. Then he spoke one word.
"Lone"—and the word drawled like a plaint.
A great wonder possessed her. So he also had felt what she had felt, had suffered what she had suffered. Through the armour of efficiency, of alertness, had penetrated the oppression of the Land. He, the strong, the vigorous, the self-reliant, had suffered as she, the weak, lonely girl. She passed her hand softly over his hot forehead; she bent down in an impulse to kiss. But he was talking again, one sentence repeated in swinging sing-song.
