“Oh, I must get there!” she panted. “I must—must—must——”
But the main highway was not even in sight: only the long, desolate country road before her, without a sign of a person or a house.
She staggered somehow to her feet and took two or three steps forward. Utterly exhausted, she sank again to the ground.
“A lot of good all my discoveries will do me or the people of Stoddard House,” she mused bitterly, “if I pass out here on the road!”
She made another effort to rise, but she was growing colder and weaker every minute. In utter dismay she buried her head in her arms.
A sense of numbness began to creep over her as she sat there; she was losing consciousness of where she was when the sharp sound of a motor horn aroused her to her senses.
A car stopped opposite her; for one tense second she was afraid to look up for fear the occupants were some of Mrs. Ferguson’s gang. When a pleasant masculine voice addressed her, she felt the tears rush to her eyes in relief.
“What is the trouble, my girl?” inquired the man. “Can I help you?”
Reassurance and an overwhelming sense of gratitude almost prevented Mary Louise from answering. The man with the kind voice was someone she could trust: she saw by his manner of dressing that he was a Catholic priest.
“Oh, yes!” she replied. “Can you take me to the constable? Do you know where he lives?”