"
Like her father, Hugh seemed to Clara absorbed in only the things outside
himself, the outer crust of life. He was like and yet unlike her father.
She was baffled by him. There was something in the man she wanted and could
not find. "The fault must be in me," she told herself. "He's all right, but
what's the matter with me?"
After that night when he ran away from her bridal bed, Clara had more than
once thought the miracle had happened. It did sometimes. On that night when
he came to her out of the rain it had happened. There was a wall a blow
could shatter, and she raised her hand to strike the blow. The wall was
shattered and then builded itself again. Even as she lay at night in her
husband's arms the wall reared itself up in the darkness of the sleeping
room.
Over the farmhouse on such nights dense silence brooded and she and Hugh,
as had become their habit together, were silent. In the darkness she put up
her hand to touch her husband's face and hair. He lay still and she had the
impression of some great force holding him back, holding her back. A sharp
sense of struggle filled the room. The air was heavy with it.
When words came they did not break the silence. The wall remained.
The words that came were empty, meaningless words. Hugh suddenly broke
forth into speech. He spoke of his work at the shop and of his progress
toward the solution of some difficult, mechanical problem.
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