"I know, I know," interrupted Miss Armitage. "Please don't tell it over again. I--can't--bear it." And she sank against the back of the seat, shuddering, and covered her eyes with her hands.
Tisdale looked at her, puzzled. "Again?" he repeated. "But I see you must have heard the story through Mr. Feversham. I told it at the clubhouse the night he was in Seattle."
"It's impossible to explain; you never could understand." She sat erect, but Tisdale felt her body tremble, and she went on swiftly, with little breaks and catches: "You don't know the hold your story has on me. I've dreamed it all over at night; I've wakened cold and wet with perspiration from head to foot, as though I--too--were struggling through those frozen solitudes. I've been afraid to sleep sometimes, the dread of facing--it-- is so strong."
Watching her, a sudden tenderness rose through the wonder in Tisdale's face.
"So you dreamed you were fighting it through with me; that's strange. But I see the story was too hard for you; Feversham shouldn't have told it." He paused and his brows clouded. "I wish I could make Weatherbee's wife dream it," he broke out. "It might teach her what he endured. I have gone over the ground with her in imagination, mile after mile, that long trek from Nome. I have seen her done for, whimpering in a corner, like the weakest husky in the team, there at the Aurora mine, and at her limit again up in Rainy Pass. And once lately, the night of the club supper, while I was lying awake in my room, looking off through the window to the harbor lights and the stars, I heard her crying deeply from the heart. She did not seem like herself then, but a different woman I was mighty sorry for."
Miss Armitage turned and met his look, questioning, hardly comprehending. "That sounds occult," she said.
"Does it? Well, perhaps it is. But a man who has lived in the big spaces has his senses sharpened. He sees farther; feels more."
There was a silent moment. The colts, topping a low dune, felt the pressure of the fills on the down-grade, and the nigh horse broke, turning the front wheel into a tangle of sage. "Mr. Tisdale," she cried a little tremulously, "do you think this is a catboat, tacking into a squall? Please, please let me drive."