The high, warm wind whirled her halfway across the lawn the moment she stepped off the doorstep. The gate in the wall was swinging open just as she had guessed, the path beyond stretched away like a black tunnel through the trees. She was afraid, she hated to go alone, she felt very small and powerless in all that empty darkness. Why had she not stopped to call David? But no, it would have taken more time than she could afford to lose. She was buffeted by the wind, brushed with ghostly hands by the low-reaching shrubs; she was half sobbing with terror, but nevertheless she ran onward.
CHAPTER XII
THE DARK OF THE MOON
The wide circle of open lawn before the ruined house was less dark than the pathway, but the shadows beneath the trees were inky black and the pines themselves were bowing and thundering in the heavy storm. There was no rain, only the boisterous wind whipping the branches and driving great masses of clouds across the sky with now and then a gleam of stars between. Stars glinted now and again in the pool also, long beams of light in the ruffled water, although, as she came near, there chanced to be quiet for a moment so that she saw reflected the irregular circle of light that Miss Miranda had told her was the Northern Crown.
She stood still by the pool for a long minute, her heart beating very loud, the pulses throbbing in her ears as it does after running. Very keenly she was peering into the dark at the long lines of ruined walls, seeing nothing at first, but by and by catching glimpses of a tiny, moving light. It stopped, vanished, reappeared, and moved on before she could be certain that she really saw it. At last it came nearer, moving along past the door that David had used, slipped over the tumbled wall, even showed double for a second in the shattered old mirror. She was trying to speak, to cry out, but she could not find her voice, could only stare, fascinated, quaking inwardly with the thought that the light, after all, might be something unearthly. But as it progressed farther toward the end of the house where the fire had raged fiercest, the sense of danger brought her to her senses at last.
“Stop,” she cried frantically. “It is not safe there. Stop, come back.”
She had called a second too late. There was a sound of rending walls and tumbling bricks, a crash, a startled cry and then a groan. She rushed across the grass, could find no place to climb over and ran up and down wildly, seeking a point of vantage where she might scramble across. A new sound caught her attention, for flying feet were coming up the path.
“Oh, David, David is it you?” she cried, in an overwhelming rush of relief. “I can’t climb up, I can’t reach him.”
“You are not to try it, it is not safe,” David ordered sternly, setting his foot on the first big block of stone even as he spoke.
“I am going where you go,” she replied and evidently he realized it was no time for argument.