This mood, miserable as it was, possessed her all the afternoon. It seemed not possible to get away from it. She crept forlornly from her bed presently, because of the necessity of seeing to her expiring fire. She was shivering with the cold; but as she struggled with the damp wood, trying to blow the perverse smoke into a flame, she went on with her indignant, not to say defiant thoughts. She went back again to that dreadful church, and the fires in those neglected stoves.
She determined resolutely that her hours spent in that building should be as few as possible. Of course, she must attend the morning service; but nothing could induce her to spend her evenings there.
"I might much better sit in my room and read my Bible, and write good Sunday letters to mamma and Dora," she told herself, grimly, as the spiteful smoke suddenly changed its course and puffed in her face. "At least, I shall not go to church. I don't belong to that church, I am thankful to remember, and never shall; I have no special duties toward it; I shall just keep away from it and from contact with the people here, as much as possible. It is enough for me if I do my duty toward those giggling girls who think they are to become musicians under my tuition. I will do my best for them, and I shall certainly earn all the salary I am offered here; then my work in this place will be accomplished. I have nothing to do with the horrors of that church. If the people choose to insult God by worshiping him in such an abomination of desolations as that, it is nothing to me. I must just endure so much of it as I am obliged to, until I can get away from here. I am not to spend my life in South Plains, I should hope."
She shuddered over the possibility of this. She did not understand her present state of mind. She seemed to herself not Claire Benedict at all, but a miserable caricature of her. What had become of the strong, bright, willing spirit with which she had been wont to take hold of life? Energetic she had always been called; "self-reliant," she had heard that word applied to herself almost from childhood. "A girl who had a great deal of executive talent." Yes, she used to have; but she seemed now to have no talent of any sort. She felt crushed; as though the motive power had been removed from her.