mentous.

When he went on speaking, without haste, unafraid although the hurrying
steps were almost there, she could scarcely hear his voice, although it
was urgent and puissant as the impact of his eyes. "You can't get away
from this now. It is here. It has been said. It lives between us, and
you are not strong enough, no power on earth is strong enough, to put it
down."

* * * * *

And then the outer world broke in on them, swept between them with an
outcry. Someone was there, someone who drew short sobbing breaths, who
caught at her and clung to her. It was Cousin Hetty's old Agnes . . . why
in the world was she here? . . . and she was saying in a loud voice as
though she had no control of it, "Oh, oh! Come quick! Come quick!"

Marise stood up, carrying the old woman with her. She was entirely
certain now that she was in a nightmare, from which she would presently
awake, wet with cold sweat.

"Come! Come!" cried the old woman, beating her hands on Marise's arm.
"Perhaps it ain't too late. Perhaps you can do something."

"What has happened?" asked Marise, making her voice sharp and imperative
to pierce the other's agitation.

"I don't know. I don't know," sobbed Agnes. "She didn't come down for
breakfast. I went up to see . . . oh, go quick! Go quick!"

She went down, half on the bench, half on the ground.

Marise and Marsh stood for an instant, petrified.

There was only the smallest part of Marise's consciousness which was
alive to this. Most of it lay numbed and bewildered, still hearing, like
a roll of thunder, the voice of Vincent Marsh.

Then she turned. "Look out for her, will you," she said briefly. "No,
don't come with me. I'll go by the back road. It's the quickest, but
it's too narrow for a car. You drive to Ashley and bring the doctor in
your car."

She ran down the path and around the house to the road, not feeling the
blinding heat of the sun. She ran along the dusty road, a few steps from
the house before the turn into the narrow lane. She felt nothing at all
but a great need for haste.

As she ran, putting all her strength into her running, there were
moments when she forgot why she was hurrying, where she was going, what
had happened; but she did not slacken her pace. She was on the narrow
back road now, in the dense shade of the pines below the Eagle Rocks. In
five minutes she would be at Cousin Hetty's. That was where she was
going.

She was running m