Mahala hurried to the kitchen to find and light the lantern. For one second she stood at the window, her hands cupped around her face, trying to peer through the darkness, to see if the lights were burning in Jason’s house. She would not have been surprised to see great tongues of flame leaping from it, but the rain was beating in sheets against the window, small branches and wet leaves were plastered on it and a black bird, blown from its shelter among the bushes, struck the glass and slid down, white lights streaming from its green eyes, its wings outspread, its breast bleeding. As the door closed behind Jason, Ellen had turned and fallen across the empty cradle. As she raised herself, her hands struck the warm sheets and the little pillow where the baby’s head had lain. On her knees staring into it, there came the first realization of what she had done. She had sent her baby to be mothered by another woman. Dazed at the tragedy that had befallen her, she caught up the little pillow and held it warm against her face and then her empty arms folded around it. Suddenly she was on her feet. She threw the pillow back into the cradle and sprang to the door. She opened it wide and screamed into the night: “Jason! Jason! Bring back my baby!” She bent her head and tried to hear his voice in answer. But the wind howled past her. Flying leaves and branches and a dust storm from the road almost blinded her as she tried to raise her voice, to scream with all her might: “Jason! Jason!” She realized that she could not make him hear her above the fury of the storm. She realized that she had only a minute. The rain would come in torrents very soon. With her arms extended before her to protect her face and breast, she rushed into the night. She found the gate and started down the road. With every flare of lightning she could see a few yards in advance of her. Until the next flare, she was in darkness. The wind blew her wide skirts so tightly around her that she could scarcely step. She realized that she could not have found her way had it not been for the light in Mahala’s house. That she could see, and she tried to go straight toward it. The difficulty in running told her that she had lost the road, but so long as she could see the light, she knew that she must reach the house. Once she had a fight to extricate herself from a thicket of bushes and then she ran into a big tree, and the tree told her where she was. She was very near the house now. This was a friendly tree in whose shelter she liked to walk whenever she went to Mahala’s house. She had stopped beneath it to pick up shining acorns for the baby to play with. She had seen the squirrels racing up and down it. She had seen great, horned owls spread their wings and sail from their day-time shelter among its heavy, gnarled branches. It was almost like meeting a friend in a time of extremity.