In five minutes she had made her way through the woods and reached the house. She tipped into the kitchen and stood in the doorway or the living-room watching her sleeping guest. The even breathing assured her that all was well. Her plan couldn't fail. She listened again for the sobs in the shed-room. She was sure once that she heard them. Five minutes passed and still she was uncertain. To avoid any possible accident she tipped back through the kitchen, circled the house and placed her ear against the crack in the logs. The girl was sobbing--or was she praying? She crouched beside the wall, waited and listened. The night wind stirred the dead leaves at her feet. She lifted her head with a sudden start, laughed softly and bent again to listen. CHAPTER XX. TRAPPED The sobbing in the little room was the only sound that came from one of the grimmest battle-fields from which the soul of a woman ever emerged alive. To the first rush of cowardly tears Mary had yielded utterly. She had fallen across the high-puffed feather mattress of the bed, shivering in humble gratitude at her escape from the horror of blindness. The grip of his claw-like fingers on her throat came back to her now in sickening waves. The blood was still trickling from the wound which his nails had made when she tore them loose in her first mad fight for breath. She lifted her body and breathed deeply to make sure her throat was free. God in heaven! Could she ever forget the hideous sinking of body and soul down into the depths of the black abyss! She had seen the face of Death and it was horrible. Life, warm and throbbing, was sweet. She loved it. She hated Death. Yes--she was a coward. She knew it now, and didn't care. She sprang to her feet with sudden fear. He might attack her again to make sure that her soul had been completely crushed. She crept to the door and felt its edges. “Yes, thank God, there's a place for the bar!” She shivered. She ran her trembling fingers carefully along the rough logs and found it in the corner. She slipped it cautiously into the iron sockets, staggered to the bed and dropped in grateful assurance of safety for the moment. She buried her face in the pillow to fight back the sobs. How great her fall! She could crawl on her hands and knees to Jane Anderson now and beg for protection. The last shred of pretense was gone. The bankrupt soul stood naked and shivering, the last rag torn from pride. What a miserable fight she had made, too, when put to the test! Ella had at least proved herself worthy to live. The scrub-woman had risen in the strength of desperation and killed the beast who had maimed her. She had only sunk a limp mass of shivering, helpless cowardice and fled from the room whining and pleading for mercy.