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The evening found him half-exhausted with nerve-strain, febrile and almost sick with the agony of waiting.
"Not much," admitted DeWitt. "I haven't been a heavy sleeper at times ever since you disappeared, strange as that may seem!" Then he grinned. It was pleasant to have Rhoda bully him. Yet the big fellow actually was sinking with weariness. The fearful hardships that he had undergone had worked havoc with him. Now that the agonizing nerve-strain was lifted he was going to pieces.
Dawn found them already paraded in the farmyard, shivering, and not much better rested than when they had entered the barn of dreadful memory the night before. Each day the accumulation of fatigue and nerve-strain became greater; each day it grew harder to drag the weary body to its feet, and trudge onwards.
"Well, as long as you do, it is all right." A half mile down the main road to Westbury a runabout was drawn up, and a converted gypsy was alternately pretending to repair an imaginary break and relieving his nerve-strain by pacing the road.
It was so close and hot and, pardon me if I say it I suddenly got the insane idea that you were about to faint in the pulpit." "Well, that is strange," interrupted Gordon, looking at her with deepening interest. "You have the gift of the sympathetic listener. I noticed no disturbance, but I did come near fainting. I have had a hard day one of fierce nerve-strain." She looked at him curiously.
"Yes, here is sanctuary for the present. You will be quite safe, at least for as long as we are safe. My servants are entirely trustworthy. Sit down and tell me all." He obeyed her, collapsing almost into the armchair which she thrust forward, a man exhausted, whether by physical exertion or by nerve-strain, or both.
The fever is only the result of the nerve-strain." "I wish it were in my power to help her. I may as well tell you now but I'd like it to remain between ourselves, of course I've told the Colonel that I determined last night to go down to New York and see if I can accomplish anything. I shall have two private detectives there to work with me.
Read the old hymns and see how devoutly thankful our pious ancestors were every day at finding themselves alive in the morning, "Safely through another night," and fancy the nerve-strain of never knowing, when you lay down to sleep, whether some one of the djinns, or voodoos, or vampires would swoop down upon you before morning.
The poet sees beggar children running races, or little Edward and the weather-cock, or something greater if you like the light on a woman's hair, or a flower; and you say, he has his poem. He has not. He must work at the thing. When we study the great poets, we realize how these things are worked out to the point of nerve-strain and exhaustion.
It had also been noted and commented upon by a few observant people that there were signs sometimes of some nerve-strain upon the part of Mrs. Douglas, and that she would display acute uneasiness if her absent husband should ever be particularly late in his return.
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