Bobby shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know. Yer can't tell what he'd do to her if he took a notion. Old Adam Ward would do anything that's mean, to anybody, no matter who. I'll bet—"
The sound of some one approaching from the direction of the castle interrupted Bobby's conjectures.
Maggie would have made another frantic effort to escape, but the boy caught her roughly and drew her down beside him. "No use to run—yer can't make it," he whispered. "Best lay low. An' don't yer dast even whimper."
Lying prone, they wormed themselves into the tall grass, with the trunk of the tree between them and the road, until it would have been a keen observer, indeed, who would have noticed them in passing.
They heard the approaching danger coming nearer and nearer. Little Maggie buried her face in the grass roots to stifle a scream. Now it was on the other side of the tree. It was passing on. Suddenly they almost buried themselves in the ground in their effort to lie closer to the earth. The sound of the footsteps had ceased.
For what seemed to them hours, the frightened children lay motionless, scarcely daring to breathe. Then another sound came to their straining ears—a sound not unfamiliar to the children of the Flats. A woman was weeping.
Cautiously, the more courageous Bobby raised his head until he could peer through the tangled stems and blades of the sheltering grass. A moment he looked, then gently shook his sister's arm. Imitating her brother's caution, little Maggie raised her frightened face. Only a few steps away, their princess lady was crouching in the grass, with her face buried in her hands, crying bitterly.
"Well, what do yer know about that?" whispered Bobby.
A moment longer they kept their places, whispering in consultation.
Then they rose quietly to their feet and, hand in hand, stood waiting.
Helen had not consciously followed the children. Indeed, her mind was so occupied with her own troubled thoughts that she had forgotten the little victims of her father's insane cruelty. To avoid meeting her mother, as she fled from the scene of her father's madness, she had taken a course that led her toward the entrance to the estate. With the one thought of escaping from the invisible presence of that hidden thing, she had left the grounds and followed the quiet old road.