She recalled to herself the story of a girl who had slept in a fairy-wood for a hundred years, and she looked fearfully at her hands, expecting them to be gnarled with a century. But they were as they always had been. Her hair about her shoulders was black. She thought that it was possible (and at that time it even seemed most probable) that, although her body might have retained its youthful form, a great flight of time had passed. She would go back to Cowan Corners to find the dark forest had swallowed it. There would be cellar holes lost in thickets, where Boston, Salem, Cowan Corners, Ipswich, etc., had stood. She felt herself alone upon a whole continent. Her body had grown so light and so unreal, she scarce could stand, nor was she wholly convinced of her own reality until she observed she still could cast a shadow. Doll Bilby had always longed for the comforts of religion, so it was natural that she, having as she believed just witnessed a manifestation of her ‘god,’ should now reverently stand and give thanks. She called upon her Father in Hell, thanking him that he had made manifest to her visible proof of his greatness. She called upon her father and mother, blessed them in the great name of Hell, and promised to serve them. She called upon all that vast host of evil things, blessed them, and promised to serve them. So she floated lightly forth, intent to see the place where Cowan Corners once had stood. Voices called her through the wood, and these she knew were true voices of men, not the eerie cries of ghosts or demons. She answered, ‘Here am I.’ Four men came to her, nor was one of them a minute older than he had seemed last Sabbath at Meeting. Mr. Zelley cried out in pity, for her five days of despair, suffering, and even the astounding pleasures of the night before, had marked the face of Doll Bilby, altering its pretty childish shape. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘you need not have run away. There is no reason to believe Mr. Bilby’s death due to anything but nature. Such a congestion of the lights is not uncommon and often results in death. Doll, as he lay dying, we questioned him if he was worked upon by any witchcraft, and he cried in a loud voice, “I die spirit free.”’ Doll wept with her hands over her face. None saw that she shed no tears. But she knew that the springs of her tears had dried in the night. Mr. Zelley kissed her gently upon the forehead, and with that kiss he entered into pact with her, for after that he cherished her and became at last her confidant in all things, even in all evil things. And he had once been a minister of God. Mr. Zelley walked by her side. The three other men looked at her doubtfully, thinking each to himself, ‘This young woman is a murderess and a witch.’ They soon outdistanced the minister and the woman, so it was he alone who took her back to her own home.