“Listen! Harken!” she whispered. “Do you hear a motor? Don’t you? Try again!”
It was still as death.
I stared up at her in terror. Not till then did I realize how serious it was. But I had never seen a woman look like that. I had never seen the anguish of helplessness in the hour of need written so plain. Her eyes seemed to open wider and wider—I had to turn away—and awful lines came on her forehead. She stretched out both arms and uttered a long Oh-h! that started in her throat and went up into a high-pitched note of pain. She was to me positively like a wild woman.
I watched her slowly raise one hand and unclasp it; I saw within a small, a very small, white paper thing, which she held closer to her face and gaped at, as if she couldn’t believe the truth of what she saw.
“What is it? What is the matter, Miss Haviland?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she answered, quite calmly.... “Listen! Don’t you hear—”
But she shuddered. “They’ll be coming, Miss Haviland. Really! You’ve no time left.”
“Yes.”
She tried to smile. It was uncanny. It was hardly more than a distension of her pale wide lips—a relic, merely, of spent resourcefulness. Then the blankness went out of her face, her expression collapsed, and she sobbed aloud.
“Miss Haviland! Miss Haviland! Do let me help you,” I begged, and I put my arm through hers and led her inside the swinging door and up the narrow stairs. “Mayn’t I do anything?”