Lucy's gaze continued unfaltering and growing harder. Under the freckles she paled, but she stood her ground.
"What do you mean? Saw me and Zavier? Where?"
"Under the trees first and then you went out into the moonlight with the blanket wrapped round your shoulders."
"You didn't see me," the hardness was now in her voice. "It was some one else."
A feeling of alarm rose in the other girl. It was not the lie alone, it was the force behind it, the force that made it possible, that gave the teller will to hold her glance steady and deny the truth. A scaring sense of desperate powers in Lucy that were carrying her outside the familiar and established, seized her friend. It was all different from her expectations. Her personal repugnance and fastidiousness were swept aside in the menace of larger things. She leaned forward and clasped Lucy's knee.
"Don't say that. I saw you. Lucy, don't say I didn't. Don't bother to tell me a lie. What did it mean? Why did you meet him? What are you doing?"
Lucy jerked her knee away. Her hands were trembling. She took up the knitting, tried to direct the needles, but they shook and she dropped them. She made a sharp movement with her head in an effort to avert her face, but the light was merciless, there was no shade to hide in.
"Oh, don't bother me," she said angrily. "It's not your affair."
Susan's dread rose higher. In a flash of vision she had a glimpse into the storm-driven depths. It was as if a child brought up in a garden had unexpectedly looked into a darkling mountain abyss.
"What are you going to do?" she almost whispered. "You mustn't. You must stop. I thought you didn't care about him. You only laughed and everybody thought it was a joke. Don't go on that way. Something dreadful will happen."