e was like ice. "But you are not coming
within this place."

Tensely she confronted him. He loomed before her as a wolfish brute,
seeking his comfort at this last cost of her pride. . . . But no man,
she thought tragically, should ever say that he had spent the night
within the same four walls.

She sprang forward, her hands outstretched, then shrank back.

She could not touch him. Not only the perception of the ludicrous folly
of matching her strength against his withheld her, but some flaming fury
against putting a hand upon a man who had so repudiated her.

Her brain grew alert. Suddenly very intent and collected she stepped
aside and Johnny Byrd came in.

Close to the wall she pressed, edging nearer and nearer the door, and as
he stumbled and fumbled with the blankets she gave a quick spring and
flashed out.

Like mad she ran across the clearing, through a thicket, and out again
and away.

On the instant he was after her; she heard his steps crashing behind her
but she had the start of her swiftness and the speed of her desperation.
Brambles meant nothing to her, nor the thickets nor branches. She flew
on and on, lost in the darkness, his shouts growing fainter and fainter
in her ears.

At last, in a shrub, she stopped to listen. She could hear nothing. Then
came a call--very faint. It came from the wrong direction. She had
turned and doubled like a hare and Johnny was pursuing, if he still
pursued, a mistaken way.

She was safe . . . and she stood still for a few minutes to quiet her
pounding heart and catch her gasping breath, and then she stole out,
cautiously, anxiously hurrying, to make her own way down.

She had no idea of time or of distance. Vaguely she felt that it was the
middle of the night but that if she were quick, very quick, she might
reach the Lodge before it was too disastrously late. She might meet a
searching party out for them--there would be searching parties if people
were truly worried at their absence.

Of course if they thought it an elopement, they might not take that
trouble. They might be merely waiting and conjecturing.

If only Cousin Jim had not returned to New York! He was so kind and
concerned that he would be searching. There would be a chance of his
understanding. But Cousin Jane--what would she believe?

Cousin Jane had seen Johnny draw her significantly back.

At her folly of the afternoon she looked back with horror. How bold she
had been in that new American