She uttered a smothered cry and fled.
III
THE FRIEND IN NEED
The road that led to the cantonments was ill-made and stony, but she dashed along it like a mad creature, unconscious of everything save the one absorbing desire to escape. Ronnie was not in sight, but she scarcely thought of him. The light was failing fast, and she knew that it would soon be quite dark, save for a white streak of moon overhead. It was still frightfully hot. The atmosphere oppressed her like a leaden weight. It seemed to keep her back, and she battled with it as with something tangible. Her feet were clad in thin slippers, and at any other time she would have known that the rough stones cut and hurt her. But in the terror of the moment she felt no pain. She only had the sense to run straight on, with gasping breath and failing limbs, till at last, quite suddenly, her strength gave out and she sank, an exhausted, sobbing heap, upon the roadway.
There came the tread of a horse's hoofs, and she started and made a convulsive effort to crawl to one side. She was nearer fainting than she had ever been in her life.
Then the hoof-beats stopped, and she uttered a gasping cry, all her nameless terror for the moment renewed.
A man jumped to the ground and, with a word to his animal, stooped over her. She shrank from him in unreasoning panic.
"Who is it? Who is it?" she sobbed. He answered her instantly, rather curtly.