Читать книгу The 13th District. A Story of a Candidate онлайн

64 страница из 109

She turned from her window. The darkness indoors was kind, it seemed to hide the wound that had been dealt her, and she hastily undressed and got to bed, curling up like a little child. Then she lay and tried to think, until her head ached. She had been thinking thus ever since the cruel moment that afternoon when she had picked up the News on the veranda.

Her heart had been light that day. She had thought of Jerome as he traveled in his private car with a coming president. She had gone with him to Lincoln, and seen him riding through the crowded streets; had beheld him in the flare of torches, his face alight with the inspiration of an orator, his eyes fine and sparkling, as she had so often seen them blazing with another passion; had heard his ringing voice, and the cheers of the frantic people, massed in that remembered square. And so in the afternoon she became impatient for the cry the boy gave when he tossed the local papers on the floor of the veranda. She had swooped down on them before the boy had turned his little back and mounted his wheel. And the thing that first struck her eye had smitten her heart still—the headlines bearing Garwood’s name. She had caught at the newel post in the wide hall to keep from falling.