In front of the servants. She had been too busy remembering the

swift running patter of Bonnie's feet and her bubbling laugh to

think that he, too, might be remembering and with pain even greater

than her own. Throughout these weeks they had met and spoken as

courteously as strangers meeting in the impersonal walls of a

hotel, sharing the same roof, the same table, but never sharing the

thoughts of each other.

Now that she was frightened and lonely, she would have broken

through this barrier if she could, but she found that he was

holding her at arm's length, as though he wished to have no words

with her that went beneath the surface. Now that her anger was

fading she wanted to tell him that she held him guiltless of

Bonnie's death. She wanted to cry in his arms and say that she,

too, had been overly proud of the child's horsemanship, overly

Indulgent to her wheedlings. Now she would willingly have humbled

herself and admitted that she had only hurled that accusation at

him out of her misery, hoping by hurting him to alleviate her own

hurt. But there never seemed an opportune moment. He looked at

her out of black blank eyes that made no opportunity for her to

speak. And apologies, once postponed, became harder and harder to

make, and finally impossible.

She wondered why this should be. Rhett was her husband and between

them there was the unbreakable bond of two people who have shared

the same bed, begotten and borne a loved child and seen that child,

too soon, laid away in the dark. Only in the arms of the father of

that child could she find comfort, in the exchange of memories and

grief that might hurt at first but would help to heal. But, now,

as matters stood between them, she would as soon go to the arms of

a complete stranger.

He was seldom at home. When they did sit down to supper together,

he was usually drunk. He was not drinking as he had formerly,

becoming increasingly more polished and biting as the liquor took

hold of him, saying amusing, malicious things that made her laugh

In spite of herself. Now he was silently, morosely drunk and, as

the evenings progressed, soddenly drunk. Sometimes, in the early

hours of the dawn, she heard him ride into the back yard and beat

on the door of the servants' house so that Pork might help him up

the back stairs and put him to bed. Put him to bed! Rhett who had

always drunk others under the table without turning a hair and then

put them to bed.

He was untidy now, where once he had been well groomed, and it took

all Pork's scandalized arguing even to make him change his linen

before supper. Whisky was showing in his face and the hard line of

his long jaw was being obscured under an unhealthy bloat and puffs

rising under his bloodshot eyes. His big body with its hard

swelling muscles looked soft and slack and his waist line began to

thicken.

Often he did not come home at all or even send word that he would

be away overnight. Of course, he might be snoring drunkenly in

some room above a saloon, but Scarlett always believed that he was

at Belle Watling's house on these occasions. Once she had seen

Belle in a store, a coarse overblown woman now, with most of her

good looks gone. But, for all her paint and flashy clothes, she

was buxom and almost motherly looking. Instead of dropping her

eyes or glaring defiantly, as did other light women when confronted

by ladies, Belle gave her stare for stare, searching her face with

an intent, almost pitying look that brought a flush to Scarlett's

cheek.

But she could not accuse him now, could not rage at him, demand

fidelity or try to shame him, any more than she could bring herself

to apologize for accusing him of Bonnie's death. She was clutched

by a bewildered apathy, an unhappiness that she could not

understand, an unhappiness that went deeper than anything she had

ever known. She was lonely and she could never remember being so

lonely before. Perhaps she had never had the time to be very

lonely until now. She was lonely and afraid and there was no one

to whom she could turn, no one except Melanie. For now, even

Mammy, her mainstay, had gone back to Tara. Gone permanently.

Mammy gave no explanation for her departure. Her tired old eyes

looked sadly at Scarlett when she asked for the train fare home.

To Scarlett's tears and pleading that she stay, Mammy only

answered: "Look ter me lak Miss Ellen say ter me: 'Mammy, come

home. Yo' wuk done finish.' So Ah's gwine home."

Rhett, who had listened to the talk, gave Mammy the money and

patted her arm.

"You're right, Mammy. Miss Ellen is right. Your work here is

done. Go home. Let me know if you ever need anything." And as

Scarlett broke into renewed indignant commands: "Hush, you fool!

Let her go! Why should anyone want to stay in this house--now?"

There was such a savage bright glitter in his eyes when he spoke

that Scarlett shrank from him, frightened.

"Dr. Meade, do you think he can--can have lost his mind?" she

questioned afterwards, driven to the doctor by her own sense of

helplessness.

"No," said the doctor, "but he's drinking like a fish and will kill

himself if he keeps it up. He loved the child, Scarlett, and I

guess he drinks to forget about her. Now, my advice to you, Miss,