A wild, appalling shriek came from somewhere above, the cry of
a mortal soul in agony.
The next instant three human forms shot through the narrow door and
out into the fog, hair on end, eyes bulging but sightless, legs
traveling like the wind and as purposeless. It mattered not that the
way was hidden; it mattered less that weeds, brush, and stumps lurked
in ambush for unwary feet. They fled into the foggy dangers without a
thought of what lay before them--only of what stalked behind them.
Upstairs Randolph Shaw lay back against the wall and shook with
laughter. Penelope's convulsed face was glued to the kitchen window,
her eyes peering into the fog beyond. Shadowy figures leaped into the
white mantle; the crash of brush came back to her ears, and then,
like the barking of a dog, there arose from the mystic gray the fast
diminishing cry:
"Help! Help! Help!" Growing fainter and sharper the cry at last was
lost in the phantom desert.
They stood at the window and watched the fog lift, gray and
forbidding, until the trees and road were discernible. Then, arm in
arm, they set forth across the wet way toward Shaw's cottage. The
mists cleared as they walked along, the sun peeped through the hills
as if afraid to look upon the devastation of the night; all the world
seemed at peace once more.
"Poor Cecil!" she sighed. "It was cruel of you." In the roadway they
found a hat which she at once identified as the count's. Farther on
there was a carriage lamp, and later a mackintosh which had been cast
aside as an impediment.
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