Carmel felt ill, dizzy. She struggled against faintness. Then the searing, unbearable thought--was it Evan?... She must know, she must determine.... Alone with the thing beneath her, with the fearsome woods behind her, with the lonely, coldly glittering lake before her, it was almost beyond belief that she should find the courage to determine.... Something within her, something stronger than horror, than terror, laid its hand upon her and compelled her. She could not, dared not, believe it was Evan Pell. From her pocket she drew the little, nickel-plated flashlight and pressed its button. Then, covering her eyes, she forced herself inch by inch to approach the lip of the grassy shelf.... She could not look, but she must look.... First she pointed the beam of the light downward, her eyes tight-closed. Clenching her fist, biting her lips, she put every atom of strength in her body to the task of forcing the lids of her eyes to open--and she looked, looked full upon the awful thing at her feet. For an instant sickness, frightful repulsion, horror, was held at bay by relief.... It was not Evan. Those soggy garments were not his; that bulk was not his.... She dared to look again, and let none decry the courage required to perform this act.... It was a terrible thing to see.... Her eyes dared not remain upon the awful, bearded face. They swept downward to where the coat, lying open, disclosed the shirt.... Upon the left bosom of the shirt was a metal shape. Carmel stared at it--and stared.... It was a star, no longer bright and glittering, but unmistakably a star.... Then, instantly, Carmel Lee knew what had become of Sheriff Churchill.... It was enough; she was required to look no more.... The spot was accursed, unendurable, and she fled from it; fled toward the lights of the Lakeside Hotel.... That they were lights of which she could not beg shelter she did not think; that she was safer with the thing which the lake had given up she did not consider. That the living to whom she fled were more frightful than the dead whom she deserted was not for her to believe in that moment. She must have light; she must feel the presence of human beings, hear human voices--it mattered not whose they were.