She listened! Yes, surely that was someone moaning. Stepping through the window out onto the porch, a sheet of rain dashed in her face, blinding her so that, for the moment, she was forced to take refuge behind the swinging hammock.
Flashes of lightning now showed a blackened sky, and the terrifying peals of thunder seemed to swallow every other earthly sound.
"But I am sure I heard a human voice," Mary told herself. "I must see if anyone is about here suffering."
She was minded to attempt to call for Jennie, when again a low, pitiful moan came as an echo to a terrific thunder clap.
"Who is it?" called Mary, but the sound had died down, and was lost in the storm.
"It could not have been Shep," Mary was thinking, "and I can't go inside without finding out what it is. Who is there?" she called, bravely throwing her skirt over her head to ward off the beating rain.
"Mary! Marie, come to Reda!" came a faint reply, and at the sound of the voice, unmistakably that of her old nurse, Mary jumped from the porch, out into the blasting storm, and attempted to follow the direction whence came the sound.
"Reda! Reda! Where are you?" she called frantically. "It is I, Mary. Answer, where are you?" She stopped under a tree to avoid a very deluge that poured down on the path. For a moment she hesitated. What if that letter from New York had been a ruse to trick her into following someone with the idea of helping Reda? But surely that was Reda's cry.
Again she called and called, but no reply came back, and baffled, as well as frightened, she ran to the house, in through the hall, her dripping garment leaving a path of water as she went, until she reached Jennie in the kitchen.
"Oh, Jennie," she gasped, "someone is out in the storm! They called me. I am sure it is my old nurse, Reda! How can we find her in this awful downpour?"