finding the narrow
trail ahead of her by instinct alone. Only once she overran it, but
that once a low hanging branch, face high, caught her full across the
forehead and sent her crashing back in the underbrush. Just once she
put one narrow foot in its loosely flapping shoe into the deep crevice
between two rocks and gasped aloud with the pain of the fall that
racked her knees. When she groped out and steadied herself erect she
was talking--stammering half incoherent words that came bursting
jerkily from her lips as she tore on.

"Help me ... in time ... God," she panted, "Just this once ... get to
him ... in time. Lord, forgive ... own vanity. Oh, God, please in
time!"

Small feet drumming the harder ground, she flashed up the last rise
and across the yard to the door of that unlighted kitchen. Her hands
felt for the latch and failed to find it; then she realized that it
was already open--the door--but her knees, all the strength suddenly
drained from them at the black quiet in that room, refused to carry
her over the threshold. She rocked forward, reaching out with one hand
for the frame to steady herself, and in that same instant the man who
lay a huddled motionless heap across the table top, moved a little and
began to speak aloud.

"They didn't want me," he muttered, and the words came with muffled
thickness. "Not even for the strength of my shoulders."

She took one faltering step forward--the girl who stood there swaying
in the doorway--and stopped again. And the man lifted his head and
laughed softly, a short, ugly rasping laugh.

"Not even for the work I could do," he finished.

And then she understood. She tried to call out to him, and the words
caught in her throat and choked her. She tried again and this time her
voice rang clear through the room.

"Denny," she cried, "Denny, I've come to you! Strike a light! I'm
here, Denny, and--oh, I'm afraid--afraid of the dark!"

Before he could rise, almost before his big-shouldered body whirled in
the chair toward her, her swift rush carried her across to him. She
knelt at his knees, her thin arms clutching him with desperate
strength. Denny Bolton felt her body shudder violently as he leaned
over, dumb with bewilderment, and put his hands on her bowed head.

"Thank God," he heard her whispering, "thank God--thank God!"

But far more swiftly than his half numbed brain could follow she was
on her feet the next instant, tense and straight and lancelike in th