Her fingers touched him before she was aware of his presence; touched him, clung to him. She cried aloud, inarticulately. Panting, sobbing, she tried to speak, but only repeated over and over that one word: “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
He felt her fingers slipping from him, felt her body sagging, falling. His arm passed round her, sustaining her. Her head sank in the hollow of her arm and she sighed with weary contentment.
“Marie, what is it?”
“Hurry!” she muttered.
But he shook her, not roughly, but with boyish impatience, boyish alarm.
“No, no! Why are you here? What is the matter?”
Her mind cleared slowly; her will that had set on one determination, to reach him—set so it could not loose its hold—relaxed. She breathed deeply, pushed against him in an effort to stand free.
“Crab Creek Trestle,” she said. “He’s—going to burn it. He warned you—to get you—out here.”
His suspicion reared itself between them.
“How do you know? What are you doing here? Did he send you?”