“Who called me?”
The sound broke the agony that had congealed Barron’s heart. With a shout he answered:
“It’s I, dearest. Where are you? Come to me.”
The voice rose again, faint, but with joy in it.
“Oh, have you come—have you come, at last!”
He made a rush forward into the blackness before him. At the same moment the two men rose, spent and breathless, from the stairs. The boy was behind Barron, and they behind the boy.
“Where are you? Where are you?” they heard him cry, as he crashed forward through shrubs and flower beds.
Then suddenly the policeman drew the small lantern he had carried from beneath his cape and shot the slide. A cube of clear, steady light cut through the inky wall in front of them. For a second they all stopped, the man sending the cylinder of radiance over the shrubs and trees in swift sweeps. In one of these it crossed a white face, quivered and rested on it. Barron gave a wild cry and rushed forward.
She was, as the boy described, crouched under a clump of small fir-trees, the lower limbs of which had been removed. The place was sheltered from observation from the house and the intrusion of the elements. As the light fell on her she was kneeling, evidently having been drawn to that posture by Barron’s voice. The light revealed her as hatless, with loosened hair, her face pinched, her eyes large and wild.
As she saw Barron she shrieked and tried to move forward, but was unable to and held out her arms. He was at her side in a moment, his arms about her, straining her to him, his lips, between frantic kisses, saying words only for him and for her.