As she went up the hill, her chest tight with tears that would not come, there crept over her an unreal feeling, a feeling that she had been in this same dim chill place before, under a like set of circumstances--not once but many times before. How silly, she thought uneasily,
quickening her steps. Her nerves were playing her tricks. But the feeling persisted, stealthily pervading her mind. She peered about her uncertainly and the feeling grew, eerie but familiar, and her head went up sharply like an animal scenting danger. It's just that I'm worn out, she tried to soothe herself. And the night's so queer, so misty. I never saw such thick mist before except--
except!
And then she knew and fear squeezed her heart. She knew now. In a hundred nightmares,
she had fled through fog like this, through a haunted country without landmarks, thick with cold cloaking mist, peopled with clutching ghosts and shadows. Was she dreaming again or was this her dream come true?
For an instant, reality went out of her and she was lost. The old nightmare feeling was
sweeping her, stronger than ever, and her heart began to race. She was standing again amid death and stillness, even as she had once stood at Tara. All that mattered in the world had gone out of it, life was in ruins and panic howled through her heart like a cold wind. The horror that was in the mist and was the mist laid hands upon her. And she began to run. As she had run a hundred times in dreams, she ran now, flying blindly she knew not where, driven by a nameless dread, seeking in the gray mist for the safety that lay somewhere.
Up the dim street she fled, her head down, her heart hammering, the night air wet on her
lips, the trees overhead menacing. Somewhere, somewhere in this wild land of moist stillness, there was a refuge! She sped gasping up the long hill, her wet skirts wrapping coldly about her ankles, her lungs bursting, the tight-laced stays pressing her ribs into her heart.
Then before her eyes there loomed a light, a row of lights, dim and flickering but none the less real. In her nightmare, there had never been any lights, only gray fog. Her mind seized on those lights. Lights meant safety, people, reality. Suddenly she stopped running, her hands clenching, struggling to pull herself out of her panic, staring intently at the row of gas lamps which had signaled to her brain that this was Peachtree Street, Atlanta, and not the gray world of sleep and ghosts.
She sank down panting on a carriage block, clutching at her nerves as though they were
ropes slipping swiftly through her hands.
"I was running--running like a crazy person!" she thought, her body shaking with lessening fear, her thudding heart making her sick. "But where was I running?"
Her breath came more easily now and she sat with her hand pressed to her side and looked
up Peachtree Street. There, at the top of the hill, was her own house. It looked as though every window bore lights, lights defying the mist to dim their brilliance. Home! It was real! She looked
at the dim far-off bulk of the house thankfully, longingly, and something like calm fell on her spirit.
Home! That was where she wanted to go. That was where she was running. Home to
Rhett!
At this realization it was as though chains fell away from her and with them the fear
which had haunted her dreams since the night she stumbled to Tara to find the world ended. At the end of the road to Tara she had found security gone, all strength, all wisdom, all loving tenderness, all understanding gone--all those things which, embodied in Ellen, had been the bulwark of her girlhood. And, though she had won material safety since that night, in her dreams she was still a frightened child, searching for the lost security of that lost world.
Now she knew the haven she had sought in dreams, the place of warm safety which had
always been bidden from her in the mist. It was not Ashley--oh, never Ashley! There was no more warmth in him than in a marsh light, no more security than in quicksand. It was Rhett--
Rhett who had strong arms to hold her, a broad chest to pillow her tired head, jeering laughter to pull her affairs into proper perspective. And complete understanding, because he, like her, saw truth as truth, unobstructed by impractical notions of honor, sacrifice, or high belief in human nature. He loved her! Why hadn't she realized that he loved her, for all his taunting remarks to the contrary? Melanie had seen it and with her last breath had said, "Be kind to him."
"Oh," she thought, "Ashley's not the only stupidly blind person. I should have seen."
For years she had had her back against the stone wall of Rhett's love and had taken it as much for granted as she had taken Melanie's love, flattering herself that she drew her strength from herself alone. And even as she had realized earlier in the evening that Melanie had been beside her in her bitter campaigns against life, now she knew that silent in the background, Rhett had stood, loving her, understanding her, ready to help. Rhett at the bazaar, reading her impatience in her eyes and leading her out in the reel, Rhett helping her out of the bondage of mourning, Rhett convoying her through the fire and explosions the night Atlanta fell, Rhett lending her the money that gave her her start, Rhett who comforted her when she woke in the nights crying with fright from her dreams--why, no man did such things without loving a woman to distraction!