“I’ll tend to my end if you tend to your’n,” snapped Mr. Bangs.
Directly following this conversation, Jenney detailed two trustworthy gentlemen to keep an eye on Carmel Lee. It was pointed out to them to be their duty not to lose sight of her an instant, and, on pain of certain severe penalties, to let no opportunity slip to induce her to join Evan Pell at the Lakeside Hotel.... It was these two gentlemen who, gratefully, saw her take her way out of town in the late evening, following the very road they would have chosen for her. They made sure she was alone, that no one was coming after her, and then took to themselves the office of escort. Quite gleefully they followed her, as she, unconscious of their presence, trudged toward the hotel. She was so thoughtful as to save them even the small trouble of transporting her.
“Like the feller that let the bear chase him into camp so’s he could shoot his meat nigh home,” whispered one of the gentlemen.
Carmel proceeded rapidly; too rapidly for such precautions as she should have observed. She was without plan; her mind was in such chaos as to render planning futile. Instinct alone was not inactive.... No matter how shaken the objective faculties may be, those superior subjective intuitions and inhibitions and urgings never sleep. Their business is so largely with the preservation of the body which they inhabit that they dare not sleep.
Quite without thinking; without a clear idea why she did so, Carmel turned off the road and took to the woods. Self-preservation was at work. Instinct was in control.... The gentlemen behind quickened their pace, disgruntled at this lack of consideration on the part of their quarry.... It was with some difficulty they found the place where she entered the woods.... Carmel herself had vanished utterly. In that black maze, a tangle of slashings, a huddle of close-growing young spruce, it was impossible to descry her, to tell in which direction she had turned. Nor did they dare make use of a flashlight in an effort to follow her trail. However, they must needs do something, so, keeping the general direction of the hotel, paralleling the road, they proceeded slowly, baffled, but hopeful....
CHAPTER XXIII
IT is not easy for one unaccustomed to the woods to remain undeviatingly upon his course even in the daytime; at night it can be accomplished only by a miracle. Carmel, in a state of agitation which was not distant from hysteria, had paused neither to consider nor to take her bearings. Of herself she was utterly careless. The only thought in her mind was to reach, and in some manner to give aid to, Evan Pell if he remained alive. Instinct alone moved her to turn off the road and seek the protection of the forest. Once engulfed in its blackness she stumbled alone, tripping, falling, turning, twisting—hurrying, always hurrying.... The physical exertion cleared her brain, reduced her to something like rationality.
She paused, leaned panting against the bole of a great beech ... and discovered she was lost.
The evening had been cloudy, but now the clouds were being dissipated by an easterly breeze—a chilly breeze—and from time to time the moon peered through to turn the blackness of the woods into a cavern, dim-lit, filled with moving, grotesque alarming shadows. The shape of fear lurks always in the forest. It hides behind every tree, crouches in every thicket, ready to leap out upon the back of him who shall for an instant lay aside the protective armor of his presence of mind. The weapon of fear is panic.... Fear perches upon the shoulder, whispering: “You are lost. You know not which way to go.... You have lost your way.” Then there arises in the heart and brain of the victim a sensation so horrible that words cannot describe it; it can be realized only by those who have experienced it. It is a combination of emotions and fears, comparable to nothing.... It is a living, clutching, torturing horror. First comes apprehension, then bewilderment. A frenzied effort to discover some landmark, to tear from the forest the secret of the points of the compass. One determines to sit calmly and reflect; to proceed coolly.... The thing is impossible. One sits while the watch ticks fifty times, and is sure he has rested for hours. He arises, takes two steps with studied deliberation, and finds he is running, bursting through slashings and underbrush in unreasoning frenzy. And frenzy thrives upon itself. One wishes to shout, to scream.... Fear chokes him, engulfs him. Reason deserts utterly, and there remains nothing but horror, panic....
Carmel experienced this and more. Throbbing, rending terror was hers, yet, even at the height of her panic, there lay beneath it, making it more horrible, her fear for Evan Pell. She uttered his name. Sobbing, she called to him—and always, always she struggled forward under the urge of panic. Even the little nickel-plated electric flash in her pocket was forgotten. That would have been something—light! It would have been a comfort, a hope.... How long she ran and fell, picked herself up to stagger onward to another fall, she did not know. For minutes the woods were an impenetrable gulf of blackness; then the moon would emerge to permit its eerie light to trickle through the interlacing foliage, and to paint grotesque patterns upon the ground beneath her feet. Threatening caverns loomed; mysterious sounds assailed her.... She was sobbing, crying Evan Pell’s name. And then—with startling suddenness—the woods ceased to be, and light was.... The heavens were clean swept of clouds, and the moon, round and full, poured down the soft silver of its radiance—a radiance reflected, mirrored, turned to brighter silver by the rippled waters of the lake.... Carmel sank in a pitiful little heap and cried—they were tears of relief. She had reached the lake.