Painfully she began to climb the stepped path toward the upper level and Cliff Villa. And again it seemed to her the depths were calling; but now she felt positive she heard a voice--a voice she knew but could not exactly place--a hail very far away yet near--all very strange, unreal and terrifying.
“Oh--am I going to be ill?” she panted. “No, no! I mustn't! For the boy's sake, I mustn't! I can't!”
With a tremendous effort, now crawling rather than walking--for her knees were as water--the girl dragged herself up the path almost to her doorway.
Again she heard the call, this time no hallucination, but reality.
“Beatrice! Beatrice!” the voice was shouting. “O-hé! Beatrice!”
His hail! Allan's!
Her heart stopped, a long minute, and then, leaping with joy, a very anguish of revulsion from long pain, thrashed terribly in her breast.
Gasping with emotion, burned with the first sudden onset of a consuming fever, half-blind, shivering, parched and in agony, the girl made a tremendous effort to hear, to see, to understand.
“Allan! Allan!” she shouted wildly. “Where are you? Where?”
“Beatrice! Here! On the bridge! I'm coming!”