[Illustration]




V


Beginning with the awful moment when she first realized her danger and the
necessity for immediate flight, she lived over every perilous instant, her
nerves straining, her breath bated as if she were experiencing it all once
more. The horror of it! Her own hopeless, helpless condition! But finally,
because her trouble was new and her body and mind, though worn with
excitement, were healthy and young, she sank into a deep sleep, without
having decided at all what she should do.

At last she woke from a terrible dream, in which the hand of her pursuer
was upon her, and her preserver was in the dark distance. With that
strange insistence which torments the victim of such dreams, she was
obliged to lie still and imagine it out, again and again, until the face
and voice of the young man grew very real in the darkness, and she longed
inexpressibly for the comfort of his presence once more.

At length she shook off these pursuing thoughts and deliberately roused
herself to plan her future.

The first necessity, she decided, was to change her appearance so far as
possible, so that if news of her escape, with full description, had been
telegraphed, she might evade notice. To that end, she arose in the early