She was standing still and listening, with a huge basket of the piled froth of the field upon her head. One long brown arm, tender with curvings, balanced the cotton; the other, poised, balanced the slim swaying body. Bending she listened, her eyes shining, her lips apart, her bosom fluttering at the well-known step.
He burst into her view with the fury of a beast, rending the wood away and trampling the underbrush, reeling and muttering until he saw her. She looked at him. Her hands dropped, she stood very still with drawn face, grayish-brown, both hands unconsciously outstretched, and the cotton swaying, while deep down in her eyes, dimly, slowly, a horror lit and grew. He paused a moment, then came slowly onward doggedly, drunkenly, with torn clothes, flying collar, and red eyes. Then he paused again, still beyond arm’s-length, looking at her with fear-struck eyes. The cotton on her head shivered and dropped in a pure mass of white and silvery snow about her limbs. Her hands fell limply and the horror flamed in her wet eyes. He struggled with his voice but it grated and came hoarse and hard from his quivering throat.
“Zora!”
“Yes, Bles.”
‚ÄúYou‚ÅÝ‚Äîyou told me‚ÅÝ‚Äîyou were‚ÅÝ‚Äîpure.‚Äù
She was silent, but her body went all a-tremble. He stepped forward until she could almost touch him; there standing straight and tall he glared down upon her.
“Answer me,” he whispered in a voice hard with its tight held sobs. A misery darkened her face and the light died from her eyes, yet she looked at him bravely and her voice came low and full as from afar.
‚ÄúI asked you what it meant to be pure, Bles, and‚ÅÝ‚Äîand you told‚ÅÝ‚Äîand I told you the truth.‚Äù