The evening had been cloudy, but now the clouds were being dissipated by an easterly breeze--a chilly breeze--and from time to time the moon peered through to turn the blackness of the woods into a cavern, dim-lit, filled with moving, grotesque alarming shadows. The shape of fear lurks always in the forest. It hides behind every tree, crouches in every thicket, ready to leap out upon the back of him who shall for an instant lay aside the protective armor of his presence of mind. The weapon of fear is panic.... Fear perches upon the shoulder, whispering: “You are lost. You know not which way to go.... You have lost your way.” Then there arises in the heart and brain of the victim a sensation so horrible that words cannot describe it; it can be realized only by those who have experienced it. It is a combination of emotions and fears, comparable to nothing.... It is a living, clutching, torturing horror. First comes apprehension, then bewilderment. A frenzied effort to discover some landmark, to tear from the forest the secret of the points of the compass. One determines to sit calmly and reflect; to proceed coolly.... The thing is impossible. One sits while the watch ticks fifty times, and is sure he has rested for hours. He arises, takes two steps with studied deliberation, and finds he is running, bursting through slashings and underbrush in unreasoning frenzy. And frenzy thrives upon itself. One wishes to shout, to scream.... Fear chokes him, engulfs him. Reason deserts utterly, and there remains nothing but horror, panic.... Carmel experienced this and more. Throbbing, rending terror was hers, yet, even at the height of her panic, there lay beneath it, making it more horrible, her fear for Evan Pell. She uttered his name. Sobbing, she called to him--and always, always she struggled forward under the urge of panic. Even the little nickel-plated electric flash in her pocket was forgotten. That would have been something--light! It would have been a comfort, a hope.... How long she ran and fell, picked herself up to stagger onward to another fall, she did not know. For minutes the woods were an impenetrable gulf of blackness; then the moon would emerge to permit its eerie light to trickle through the interlacing foliage, and to paint grotesque patterns upon the ground beneath her feet. Threatening caverns loomed; mysterious sounds assailed her.... She was sobbing, crying Evan Pell’s name. And then--with startling suddenness--the woods ceased to be, and light was.... The heavens were clean swept of clouds, and the moon, round and full, poured down the soft silver of its radiance--a radiance reflected, mirrored, turned to brighter silver by the rippled waters of the lake.... Carmel sank in a pitiful little heap and cried--they were tears of relief. She had reached the lake.