Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/389

Rh She is mad, or dead, she thought, with the calmness of despair, then turned the handle. "Millie," she said again, afraid to look in, "Millie." The sound of an animal jumping from the bed answered her, and Tom bounded from the room, and commenced circling round her feet with glad caresses. She thrust him away, and hurrying downstairs, opened the hall-door and ran into the garden. Unable to rest there, she went through the gates, out upon the moors that lay at the back of the house.

"I am a murderer," she said, and ran on. She wanted to hide, but there was no shadow. The sun began to send his golden shafts over the world. "Don't rise," she wept, "don't rise; give me darkness." Fear was after her, and she ran like a hare before the hound. Why had such a thing happened to her?—she, who had been always gentle, kind, and loving to all things. Was it love that had made a devil of her? Then she hated love. "What are you shining for," she shrieked at the sun, "now the world has come to an end?" She hurried on stumbling, tripped, and would have fallen, but stretching out her arms, she was caught.