She was dizzy and had to put her hand on the
rock to steady herself. The lantern light was extinguished but she
did not remember the lantern, or Wiggle. She felt very strange and
wanted a drink of water. Her hand trembled and her little arm with
which she braced herself against the rock, felt weak. And her head
throbbed, throbbed. ...
Where were all those people? She felt around for them. Then she
heard the voice again, far off through the woods, up along that highway.
It was just an innocent automobile,
"You have to go back."
Pepsy rose to her feet with a start, reeled, reached for a tree,
and clutched it. "I'll stop it, I'll--I'll make it--it stop--I'll tear
it--I'll pull them off," she said. "I--I won't--go back--I won't, I won't,
I won't!"
Staggering across the road she entered the woods. Each tree there
seemed like two trees. She groped her way among them, dizzy, almost
falling. Sometimes the woods seemed to be moving. Perhaps it was by
the merest chance that she stumbled into the trail which led through
the woods to the highway, ending close to the old bridge.
But once in the familiar path she ran in a kind of frenzy. No doubt
the fever gave her a kind of temporary, artificial strength, as indeed
it gave her the crazy resolve somehow to still that haunting voice
forever.
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