Into her swaying, darkened mind, cold sanity came back with a rush

and she remembered what she had forgotten for the moment--that she

was frightened too, and Rhett was leaving her, leaving her, the

damned cad. And on top of it all, he had the consummate gall to

stand here in the road and insult her with his infamous proposals.

Rage and hate flowed into her and stiffened her spine and with one

wrench she tore herself loose from his arms.

"Oh, you cad!" she cried and her mind leaped about, trying to think

of worse things to call him, things she had heard Gerald call Mr.

Lincoln, the MacIntoshes and balky mules, but the words would not

come. "You low-down, cowardly, nasty, stinking thing!" And

because she could not think of anything crushing enough, she drew

back her arm and slapped him across the mouth with all the force

she had left. He took a step backward, his hand going to his face.

"Ah," he said quietly and for a moment they stood facing each other

In the darkness. Scarlett could hear his heavy breathing, and her

own breath came in gasps as if she had been running hard.

"They were right! Everybody was right! You aren't a gentleman!"

"My dear girl," he said, "how inadequate."

She knew he was laughing and the thought goaded her.

"Go on! Go on now! I want you to hurry. I don't want to ever see

you again. I hope a cannon ball lands right on you. I hope it

blows you to a million pieces. I--"

"Never mind the rest. I follow your general idea. When I'm dead

on the altar of my country, I hope your conscience hurts you."

She heard him laugh as he turned away and walked back toward the

wagon. She saw him stand beside it, heard him speak and his voice

was changed, courteous and respectful as it always was when he

spoke to Melanie.

"Mrs. Wilkes?"

Prissy's frightened voice made answer from the wagon.

"Gawdlmighty, Cap'n Butler! Miss Melly done fainted away back

yonder."

"She's not dead? Is she breathing?"

"Yassuh, she breathin'."

"Then she's probably better off as she is. If she were conscious,

I doubt if she could live through all the pain. Take good care of

her, Prissy. Here's a shinplaster for you. Try not to be a bigger

fool than you are."

"Yassuh. Thankee suh."

"Good-by, Scarlett."

She knew he had turned and was facing her but she did not speak.

Hate choked all utterance. His feet ground on the pebbles of the

road and for a moment she saw his big shoulders looming up in the

dark. Then he was gone. She could hear the sound of his feet for

a while and then they died away. She came slowly back to the

wagon, her knees shaking.

Why had he gone, stepping off into the dark, into the war, into a

Cause that was lost, into a world that was mad? Why had he gone,

Rhett who loved the pleasures of women and liquor, the comfort of

good food and soft beds, the feel of fine linen and good leather,

who hated the South and jeered at the fools who fought for it? Now

he had set his varnished boots upon a bitter road where hunger

tramped with tireless stride and wounds and weariness and heartbreak

ran like yelping wolves. And the end of the road was death. He

need not have gone. He was safe, rich, comfortable. But he had

gone, leaving her alone in a night as black as blindness, with the

Yankee Army between her and home.

Now she remembered all the bad names she had wanted to call him but