"Promise you won't attempt anything by yourself--promise you'll sit here
till I come back," he said in a tone that sounded like a threat.

"Of course."

He still hesitated. Then a glance at the sands decided him. How, on their
bare openness, could she escape him?--if she did give him the slip. Here
and there streaks of mist lay thin and filmy in the moonlight. But as a
rule the sands were clear, the night without a stain.

"All right. I'll be back in ten minutes--less!"

She nodded. He hurried along the platform, asked a question or two of the
station-master, and disappeared.

She turned eagerly to watch. She saw him run down the road outside the
station--past a grove of trees--out into the moonlight again. Then the
road bent and she saw him no more. Just beyond the bend appeared the
first houses of the little town.

She rose. Her heart beat so, it seemed to her to be a hostile thing
hindering her. A panic terror drove her on, but exhaustion and physical
weakness caught at her will, and shod her feet with lead.

She walked down the platform, however, to the station-master.

"The gentleman has gone to inquire at the inn. Will you kindly tell him
when he comes back that I have made up my mind after all to walk to
Marsland? He can catch me up on the sands."