"Betty; don't play the fool with me!"
She cautiously drew herself further under cover, making sure that no
end of her habit remained in sight. The overgrowth of the hedge was
her salvation. If she had seen the spot by daylight, she would not have
thought it a possible place of concealment.
Once she had read an account of a woman's frantic flight from a murderer
who was hunting her to her death, while she slipped from one poor hiding
place to another, sometimes crouching behind walls or bushes, sometimes
lying flat in long grass, once wading waist-deep through a stream, and
at last finding a miserable little fastness, where she hid shivering for
hours, until her enemy gave up his search. One never felt the reality of
such histories, but there was actually a sort of parallel in this. Mad
and crude things were let loose, and the world of ordinary life seemed
thousands of miles away.
She held her breath, for he was leaving the house by the front door. She
heard his footsteps on the bricked path, and then in the lane. He went
to the road, and the sound of his feet died away for a few moments. Then
she heard them returning--he was back in the lane--on the brick path,
and stood listening or, perhaps, reflecting.
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