As she lay in her little attic bed, she was still sullenly thinking, wearily thinking of her life.

She thought of a poor old horse which Sim had bought once, years before, and put to the plough when it was too old and weak to work.

She could see her again as in a vision, that poor old mare, with sad head drooping, toiling, toiling, till at last she could no longer move, and lying down under the harness in the furrow, groaned under the whip--and died.
Then she wondered if her own numbness and despair meant death, and she held her breath to think harder upon it.

She concluded at last, grimly, that she didn't care--only for the children.
The air was frightfully close in the little attic, and she heard the low mutter of the rising storm in the west.

She forgot her troubles a little, listening to the far-off gigantic footsteps of the tempest.
_Boom, boom, boom_, it broke nearer and nearer, as if a vast cordon of cannon was being drawn around the horizon.