the firelight and that rocking figure
to the little chink of light that was hardly light as yet, coming in at
one corner of the curtain. She was remembering. Her tongue stole out and
passed over her lips; beneath the bedclothes she folded both her hands
tight across her heart. Then she was not dead with him--not dead! Not
gone back with him into the ground--not--And suddenly there flickered in
her a flame of maniacal hatred. They were keeping her alive! A writhing
smile forced its way up on to her parched lips.

"Betty, I'm so thirsty--so thirsty. Get me a cup of tea."

The stout form heaved itself from the chair and came toward the bed.

"Yes, my lovey, at once. It'll do you good. That's a brave girl."

"Yes."

The moment the door clicked to, Gyp sprang up. Her veins throbbed; her
whole soul was alive with cunning. She ran to the wardrobe, seized her
long fur coat, slipped her bare feet into her slippers, wound a piece
of lace round her head, and opened the door. All dark and quiet! Holding
her breath, stifling the sound of her feet, she glided down the stairs,
slipped back the chain of the front door, opened it, and fled. Like a
shadow she passed across the grass, out of the garden gate, down the
road under the black dripping trees. The beginning of light was mixing
its grey hue into the darkness; she could just see her feet among the
puddles on the road. She heard the grinding and whirring of a motor-car
on its top gear approaching up the hill, and cowered away against the
hedge. Its light came searching along, picking out with a mysterious
momentary brightness the bushes and tree-trunks, making the wet road
gleam. Gyp saw the chauffeur turn his head back at her, then the car's
body passed up into darkness, and its tail-light was all that was left
to see. Perhaps that car was going to the Red House with her father, the
doctor, somebody, helping to keep her alive! The maniacal hate flared up
in her again; she flew on. The light grew; a man with a dog came out of
a gate she had passed, and called "Hallo!" She did not turn her head.
She had lost her slippers, and ran with bare feet, unconscious of
stones, or the torn-off branches strewing the road, making for the lane
that ran right down to the river, a little to the left of the inn, the
lane of yesterday, where the bank was free.

She turned into the lane; dimly, a hundred or more yards away, she
could see the willows, the width of lighter grey that was the river