The camp had an unusually quiet look; so far as her eyes, injected with red by the effort she had made, could see, there were no moving figures anywhere; no one sitting on the benches; no one on the beach. Where were all the people?—what could have become of them? Hollis and the judge?—even the cook and the Irishmen? Nothing stirred; it seemed to her as if the very leaves on the trees and the waters of the lake had been struck by an unnatural calm. She came to the first stakes, where the nets were sometimes spread out. The nets were not there now. Then she came to the cistern—a sunken cask to which water was brought from an ice-cold spring; still no sound. Then the wood-pile; the Irishmen had evidently been adding to it that day, for an axe remained in a severed trunk; but no one was there. Though she had kept up her pace without break as she ran past these familiar objects, there was now a singing in her ears, and she could scarcely see, everything being rimmed by the hot, red blur which seemed to exhale from her own eyes. She reached the line of lodges at last; leaving the beach, and going through the wood, she went straight to Cicely’s door. It was closed. She opened it. “Cicely!” she said, or rather her lips formed the name without a sound.
“What is the matter? Where is Jack?” cried Cicely, springing up as soon as she saw Eve’s face.
They met, grasping each other’s hands.
“Where is he? What have you done with him?” Cicely repeated, holding Eve with a grasp of iron.
Eve could not talk. But she felt the agony in the mother’s cry. “Safe,” she articulated.
Cicely relaxed her hold. Eve sank to her knees; thence to the floor.
Cicely seemed to understand; she brought a pillow with business-like swiftness, and placed it under Eve’s head; then she waited. Eve’s eyes were closed; her throat and chest labored so, as she lay with her head thrown back, that Cicely bent down and quickly took out the little arrow-pin, and unbuttoned the top buttons of her dress. This relieved Eve; the convulsive panting grew quiet.
But with her first long breath she was on her feet again. “Come!” she said. She opened the door and left the lodge, hurrying down to the beach; thence she ran westward along the shore to the point where the canoes were kept. Cicely ran by her side without speaking; they had no need of words.
Reaching the boats, Eve began to push one of them towards the water. “Call Mr. Hollis;—go up to the edge of the wood and call,” she said to Cicely, briefly.
“Gone fishing,” Cicely responded, helping to push the boat on the other side.