"What I have called on will be near me, and will stand between us," she said.
Old though it was, the door was massive and heavy to lift.
To open it cost him some muscular effort.
"I am going to the horses now," he explained before he dragged it back into its frame and shut her in."It is safe enough to leave you here.You will stay where you are."He felt himself secure in leaving her because he believed she could not move, and because his arrogance made it impossible for him to count on strength and endurance greater than his own.Of endurance he knew nothing and in his keen and cynical exultance his devil made a fool of him.
As she heard him walk down the path to the gate, Betty stood amazed at his lack of comprehension of her.
"He thinks I will stay here.He absolutely thinks I will wait until he comes back," she whispered to the emptiness of the bare room.
Before he had arrived she had loosened her boot, and now she stooped and touched her foot.
"If I were safe at home I should think I could not walk, but I can walk now--I can--I can--because I will bear the pain."In such cottages there is always a door opening outside from the little bricked kitchen, where the copper stands.She would reach that, and, passing through, would close it behind her.After that SOMETHING would tell her what to do--something would lead her.
She put her lame foot upon the floor, and rested some of her weight upon it--not all.A jagged pain shot up from it through her whole side it seemed, and, for an instant, she swayed and ground her teeth.
"That is because it is the first step," she said."But if Iam to be killed, I will die in the open--I will die in the open."The second and third steps brought cold sweat out upon her, but she told herself that the fourth was not quite so unbearable, and she stiffened her whole body, and muttered some words while she took a fifth and sixth which carried her into the tiny back kitchen.
"Father," she said."Father, think of me now--think of me! Rosy, love me--love me and pray that I may come home.
You--you who have died, stand very near!"If her father ever held her safe in his arms again--if she ever awoke from this nightmare, it would be a thing never to let one's mind hark back to again--to shut out of memory with iron doors.
The pain had shot up and down, and her forehead was wet by the time she had reached the small back door.Was it locked or bolted--was it? She put her hand gently upon the latch and lifted it without ****** any sound.Thank God Almighty, it was neither bolted nor locked, the latch lifted, the door opened, and she slid through it into the shadow of the grey which was already almost the darkness of night.Thank God for that, too.
She flattened herself against the outside wall and listened.
He was having difficulty in managing Childe Harold, who snorted and pulled back, offended and made rebellious by his savagely impatient hand.Good Childe Harold, good boy! She could see the massed outline of the trees of the spinney.If she could bear this long enough to get there--even if she crawled part of the way.Then it darted through her mind that he would guess that she would be sure to make for its cover, and that he would go there first to search.
"Father, think for me--you were so quick to think!" her brain cried out for her, as if she was speaking to one who could physically hear.
She almost feared she had spoken aloud, and the thought which flashed upon her like lightning seemed to be an answer given.He would be convinced that she would at once try to get away from the house.If she kept near it--somewhere--somewhere quite close, and let him search the spinney, she might get away to its cover after he gave up the search and came back.The jagged pain had settled in a sort of impossible anguish, and once or twice she felt sick.But she would die in the open--and she knew Rosalie was frightened by her absence, and was praying for her.Prayers counted and, yet, they had all prayed yesterday.
"If I were not very strong, I should faint," she thought.
"But I have been strong all my life.That great French doctor--I have forgotten his name--said that I had the physique to endure anything."She said these things that she might gain steadiness and convince herself that she was not merely living through a nightmare.Twice she moved her foot suddenly because she found herself in a momentary respite from pain, beginning to believe that the thing was a nightmare--that nothing mattered--because she would wake up presently--so she need not try to hide.
"But in a nightmare one has no pain.It is real and I must go somewhere," she said, after the foot was moved.Where could she go? She had not looked at the place as she rode up.
She had only half-consciously seen the spinney.Nigel was swearing at the horses.Having got Childe Harold into the shed, there seemed to be nothing to fasten his bridle to.And he had yet to bring his own horse in and secure him.She must get away somewhere before the delay was over.
How dark it was growing! Thank God for that again!
What was the rather high, dark object she could trace in the dimness near the hedge? It was sharply pointed, is if it were a narrow tent.Her heart began to beat like a drum as she recalled something.It was the shape of the sort of wigwam structure made of hop poles, after they were taken from the fields.If there was space between it and the hedge--even a narrow space--and she could crouch there? Nigel was furious because Childe Harold was backing, plunging, and snorting dangerously.She halted forward, shutting her teeth in her terrible pain.She could scarcely see, and did not recognise that near the wigwam was a pile of hop poles laid on top of each other horizontally.It was not quite as high as the hedge whose dark background prevented its being seen.Only a few steps more.No, she was awake--in a nightmare one felt only terror, not pain.
"YOU, WHO DIED TO-DAY," she murmured.
