But the drug-store was closed and dark, and the threat of
Rudolph's return terrified her. She must get off the hill, somehow.
There were still paths down the steep hill-side, dangerous things
that hugged the edge of small, rocky precipices, or sloped steeply
to sudden turns. But she had played over the hill all her young
life. She plunged down, slipping and falling a dozen times, and
muttering, some times an oath, some times a prayer,
"Oh, God, let me be in time. Oh, God, hold him up a while until
I - " then a slip. "If I fall now - "
Only when she was down in the mill district did she try to make any
plan. It was almost eleven then, and her ears were tense with
listening for the sound she dreaded. She faced her situation, then.
She could not telephone from a private house, either to the mill or
to the Spencer house, what she feared, and the pay-booths of the
telephone company demanded cash in advance. She was incapable of
clear thought, or she would have found some way out, undoubtedly.
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