I never had the look you did when
I came in! I never had that look of fooling with things!"

Katie was white--powerless--with rage. "_You_ dare speak to _me_ like
that!" she choked. "You--!"

And all control gone she rushed blindly from the room.

CHAPTER XXV

She had no idea how long she had been walking. She was conscious of being
glad that there was so big a place for walking, that walking was not a
preposterous thing to be doing. She passed several groups of soldiers.
They were reassuring; they looked so much in the natural order of things
and gave no sign of her being out of that order.

Though she knew she was out of it. It was dizzying--that feeling of
having lost herself. She had never known it before.

After she had walked very fast for what seemed a long time she seemed
able to gather at least part of her forces back under control.

That blinding sense of everything being scattered, of her being
powerless, was passing.

And the first thing sanity brought was the suggestion that Ann, too,
might be like that. Once before Ann had been "scattered" that way--oh she
understood it now as she had not been able to do then. And perhaps Ann
would have less power to gather herself back--

She grew frightened. She turned toward home, walking fast as she
could--worried to find herself so far away.

Major Darrett stepped out from the library to speak to her, but she
hurried past him up the stairs.

Ann was not in the room where she had left her.

She looked through the other rooms. She called to her.

Then it must be--she told herself--all the while fear growing larger in
her heart--that Ann, too, had gone out for a walk.

"Worth," she asked, grotesquely overdoing unconcern, "where's Miss Ann?
Has she gone for a walk?"

"Why, Aunt Kate, she was called away."

"Called _away_?" whispered Katie. "Called where?"

"She said she was called away. She's gone."

"But she's coming back? When did she say, dear," she pleaded, "that she
would be back?"

"I don't know, Aunt Kate. She felt awful bad because she had to go. She
came and kissed me--she kissed me and kissed me--and said she hated to
leave me--but that she had to go. She kept saying she had to."

In the hall was Nora. "Nora," asked Katie, standing with her back to her,
"what is it about Miss Forrest?"

"She was called away, Miss Kate. A telegram. I didn't see no boy--"

"They must have 'phoned it," said Katie sharply.

"Yes'm. I didn't hear