"Warned, he can take the long way home, and Hugon and this other may be dealt with at his leisure.

Come, my girl; there's no time to lose." They left behind them the creek, the blooming dooryard, the small white house, and the gentle Quakeress.

The woods received them, and they came into a world of livid greens and grays dashed here and there with ebony,--a world that, expectant of the storm, had caught and was holding its breath.

Save for the noise of their feet upon dry leaves that rustled like paper, the wood was soundless.

The light that lay within it, fallen from skies of iron, was wild and sinister; there was no air, and the heat wrapped them like a mantle.