"Now and at the hour of our death!" she heard as the carriage rolled on, and shuddered when the coachman slammed the door upon that pale, crazed creature.
Behind the bushes she was well screened, and the few people that drove and walked through the wild, beautiful woodland never looked in her direction. Once a couple, intertwined and deep in each other's eyes, almost ran against her, but though she drew away, startled and apologizing, they walked on with no reply to her excuses.
Her heart sank strangely.
"I wish they had spoken to me," she whispered to herself. "I wish I could think better—I know there is something wrong. The next person I meet I will ask——"
But she walked steadily away from the great driveway, deeper and deeper into the wood.
"In a moment I will stop and think this out—in a moment," she murmured, but she did not stop; she ran like a hunted animal, farther and farther.
The wood was utterly quiet. Sometimes a little furry beast slipped across the narrow path she ran along, sometimes a large bird flapped heavily into the air ahead of her; but no person walked or called.
Soon a great fatigue seized her, and hunger. She moved languidly; her legs seemed to walk of themselves.
"I must eat—I must rest," she moaned, "but why did they not speak to me?"
At last she realized that she could drag herself no farther, that she was alone and lost, fearful and worn out, in a dense wood.