As she hesitated some one stepped from the shadow of a clump
of bushes and confronted her under the electric light.
"Can you tell me how to find the nearest way out? I'm lost."
Priscilla's heart gave one hard throb and stood still, it seemed for an
hour, while an almost forgotten terror seized and held her. She was
looking full upon Jerry-Jo McAlpin! A soiled and haggard shadow he was
of what he once had been, but it was Jerry-Jo and no other.
"I--I did not mean to frighten you. Forgive me. I ain't going to hurt
you, Miss. I----"
But Priscilla was gone before the sentence was finished. Gone before she
knew whether the speaker had recognized her or not. Gone before--and then
she stood still. She could not leave him to wander alone at night in that
big, strange place. No matter what happened, she must treat him humanly,
she, who knew the danger. She went back, her blood running like ice
through her body; but Jerry-Jo McAlpin was not there. Priscilla waited,
and once she spoke vague directions to the empty space, but no answering
voice replied. Presently she controlled herself, and took to the path
again, and reached John Boswell's house before he had left his window.
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