Cuckoo, having directed her
steps down a blind-alley had, not unnaturally, reached a dead-wall,
blotting out the horizon. Lying there, she faced it. She stared at the
wall, and the wall seemed to stare back at her. Perhaps for that reason
a dull blankness flowed over and filled her mind, and made her widely
opened eyes almost as expressionless as the eyes of a corpse. For a
long time she lay in this alive stupor. Then Jessie stirred again, and
Cuckoo, as she had been before spurred into wakefulness, was stirred
into thoughtfulness. She began to pass the near past, the present,
eventually the future, in review. The past was a crescendo, solitude
growing louder each night, poverty growing louder, obstinacy growing
louder, Mrs. Brigg growing louder. What an orchestra! Cuckoo had not
seen Julian once. She had seen the doctor, to be told of his baffled
efforts, of Julian's escape from all his friends, of Valentine's
declaration of the stone going down in the sea, of utter deadlock,
utter stagnation. For the doctor treated Cuckoo frankly as a brave
woman, not deceitfully as a timid child to be buoyed on the waves of
ill-circumstances with gas-filled bladders. Cuckoo knew the worst of
things, and by the knowledge was confirmed in her mule's attitude which
so weighed upon Mrs.
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