She heard the rattle of the
window pane as the man pushed himself half out of the window; she
heard him call back to the waiting room behind him!
"It's a cat, dear--I saw it, plain. It's pretty bright out here. But
I thought I saw something white beside it, too. I guess I'll take a
look around outside."
There was a sound of movement behind the window, and, caught in an
ecstasy of terror, Caroline turned at right angles from the fields
and ran to the road that gleamed white, far on the other side of the
cottage. Panting, she won it, crossed it, and fairly safe behind the
low growth of wayside brushes that fringed its other side, she
dashed along, farther and farther from the cottage, more and more
frightened with every gasping breath.
On and on she flew, light as a skimming leaf in the wind, the cat
bounding in easy, flexible curves beside her. Now a little brown
cottage in its plot of land sent them into the road for a moment;
now some tiny pond, a mirror for the sprinkled heavens, broke into
their course, and they skirted it more slowly, peering continuously
into its jeweled depths. With them their hurrying shadows, black on
the road, fainter on the grass, fled ceaselessly, hardly more quiet
than they. A very intoxication of fear, a panic terror almost
delicious, drove Caroline through the night, though after a while
she ran more slowly.
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