Stokes addressed her, his voice low and urgent:
“Flora, just try to answer quietly.”
She paid no attention to him, her eyes riveted on Rawson.
“And then you came back to the house?”
“Yes, but I stood there watching her for a few minutes. I don’t know how long, desperate, not knowing what to do. And then I started to run back here and I fell down. I suppose I was shaking so and the rocks were slippery. I think I fell twice, but I don’t know. I seemed to be half-crazy.”
“You saw or heard nothing on your way back?”
“No, no, I keep telling you,” her voice grew higher. “I never saw anybody. If anybody was there he must have been hiding. They could have heard me—I was screaming.” She turned to the others. “Wasn’t I screaming?”
Bassett confirmed her statement and she went on, her voice still higher, the cords in her neck starting out:
“Of course they heard me and hid—got out of the way. Some stranger. We were all in the house, everybody here was in the house. It couldn’t have been any of them.”
Stokes half rose: “Flora—please!”