The biggest and fiercest thought-midge of all stung Priscilla with so sharp a point that she started as if she had been pricked with a needle. In a flash she saw how she could revenge herself on Polly, could punish her so that her face would look as queer and terrified as it had done a little while ago when she had been afraid Priscilla would fall over the ledge of Pine Lodge and had implored her to come away from it; in fact had made her getting down from the bench the condition on which the doll was to be brought. Priscilla had gotten down, as she had promised to do. But she had not promised not to get up again. Her teeth set hard.
SHE WAS LEANING FAR, FAR OUT
As she drew near the entrance of the summer-house Polly heaved a long sigh of relief. There was Priscilla safe and sound, standing in the doorway just as she had left her. She had disobeyed orders, of course, when she left Priscilla alone in Pine Lodge, but she felt sure that would be forgiven her when she explained how it was she had come to go and that, notwithstanding, Priscilla was unharmed.
“See, Priscilla,” she cried, eagerly as soon as she was within earshot, “I’ve got her. I would have come quicker, only I couldn’t find her anywhere. I hunted every place I could think of and where d’you s’pose she was? Under the cushions on the veranda. Now we can play and it’ll be ever so nice.”
Priscilla made no response. She did not even hold out her arms for the doll. She waited until Polly reached the threshold and then she turned on her heel and very slowly and deliberately walked away from her and toward the forbidden side of the Lodge. Polly halted a moment in bewilderment and the skin all over her body seemed to grow cold and to be shriveling together, while her eyes turned into two burning balls that smarted and stung, for Priscilla was climbing up upon the bench and leaning far, far over.
Polly tried to call out but no sound would come. After a second Priscilla turned her head and glanced around with a look in her eyes that no one had ever seen there before. She had determined to punish Polly and she meant to do it thoroughly.
“Oh, Priscilla,” gasped Polly. “Please, please—get down! Remember, you promised.”
For answer, Priscilla stared at her coldly with those strange gray, steely eyes of hers and then bent her body far over the dangerous ledge again.
Polly’s breath caught in a tight, choking knot in her throat and she turned sick all over, and faint and weak. There was one second in which she was quite blind and then another in which everything before her appeared to burn right through her eyes and back into her brain. The motionless leaves on the trees; the patches of blue sky through the green boughs: the soft, gray slab-side walls of Pine Lodge: the low bench running round them; Priscilla standing upon the bench and leaning far, far out, and then—and then—no Priscilla at all. Without a cry, without a sound she had vanished over the edge,—she had lost her balance and had fallen into the ravine!