Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/120

114 kind that made her feel, for all her speed, that she would never reach the bottom, yet she came at last into the hall below and out upon the stoop. She fled past Mrs. Crawford, sitting with the sleeping baby across her lap and looking up anxiously, with good cause for misgiving since she had heard her husband go up the stair.

It was only when she was safely outside the gate that Janet stopped to draw breath, to realize how her knees were trembling and how her heart was pounding. Yet it stopped suddenly and seemed to miss a beat when she realized something further, that she still held in her hand the miniature of Cicely Hallowell.

"Can I go back?" she wondered desperately, but knew instantly that she could never find courage to do so. She went on, hurrying and stumbling as she made her way down the lane. Only once she ventured to look over her shoulder and saw Anthony Crawford standing on the doorstep staring after her while the scarecrow that was so vaguely like him seemed to be lifting its straw-filled arm in a mocking gesture of farewell.

Janet and Oliver held an anxious conference that evening as they sat on the terrace, for until that moment they had not been alone together. She brought out the miniature and told of the astonishing and disturbing manner in which it had come into her possession, while Oliver wondered, in frank dismay, how it was to be restored to its owner.