ngled rat. She could
remember the half-conscious moment that preceded the total darkness as
she felt his grip relax.

He would choke and beat her again, too. He had said it in the sneering
laughter at the door.

"A good little wife now and it's all right!"

And if you're not obedient to my whims I'll choke you until you are!
That was precisely what he meant. That he was capable of any depth of
degradation, and that he meant to drag her with him, there could be no
longer the shadow of a doubt.

She could not endure another scene like that. She sprang to her feet
again, shivering with terror. She could hear the hum of the conversation
in the next room. He was persuading his mother to join in his criminal
career. He was busy with his oily tongue transforming the simple,
ignorant, lonely old woman into an avaricious fiend who would receive
his blood-stained booty and rejoice in it.

He was laughing again. She put her trembling hands over her ears to shut
out the sound. He had laughed at her shame and cowardice. It made her
flesh creep to hear it.

She would escape. The mountain road was dark and narrow and crooked. She
would lose her way in the night, perhaps. No matter. She could keep
warm by walking. At dawn she would find her way to a cabin and ask
protection. If she could reach Asheville, a telegram would bring
her father. She wouldn't lose a minute. Her hat and coat were in the
living-room. She would go bareheaded and without a coat. In the morning
she could borrow one from the woman at the Mount Mitchell house.

She crept cautiously along the walls of the room searching for a door or
window. There must be a way out. She made the round without discovering
an opening of any kind. There must be a window of some kind high up for
ventilation. There was no glass in it, of course. It was closed by a
board shutter--if she could reach it.

She began at the door, found the corner of the room and stretched her
arms upward until they touched the low, rough joist. Over every foot of
its surface she ran her fingers, carefully feeling for a window. There
was none!

She found an open crack and peered through. The stars were shining cold
and clear in the December sky. The twinkling heavens reminded her that
it was Christmas Eve. The dawn she hoped to see in the woods, if she
could escape, would be Christmas morning. There was no time for idle
tears of self-pity.

The one thought that beat in every throb of her heart now w