She listened to the retreating hoofs of Flenton's horse, dreading always to hear Lance's voice hailing him, telling herself that his presence there at that hour alone with her was all Lance's fault, and she had no reason for the shame and fear which possessed her at thought of it. But the [208] hoofs passed quite away, and still Lance did not make his appearance. She could not sleep. She judged it was near midnight. Pictures of Lance teaching Ola Derf her chords on the banjo flickered before her eyes. Pictures of Lance dancing with Ola as he had at the infare followed. She had a kind of wonder at herself that she was not angrier, that she was only spent and numbed and cowed. Then all at once came a light step she knew well, the sudden little harmonious outcry of the banjo as Lance set it down to open the door, and Lance himself was in the room. She thought she would have spoken to him. She did not know that the Indian had gone in and announced her presence outside the window at the Derfs. As she raised her head she got his haughty, lifted profile between herself and the light of the now dying fire. She knew that he was aware of her presence; but he looked neither to the right nor to the left; he made no comment on her fire, but strode swiftly through the room, across the open passage, and into the far room. She heard him moving about for a few moments, then everything was silent. All that numbing inertia fell away from her. She sat up on the edge of the bed as she had once before that evening, and her eyes went from side to side of the room, picking out what she wanted to take with her. A few swift movements secured her shawl and sunbonnet. Without stealth, yet [209] without noise, she opened the door and stepped forth. She stood in the open threshing-floor porch between the two rooms, a very gulf of shadow, into which watery moonlight struggled from the world outside. A long while she stood so, looking toward the far room, her hands clenched and pressed hard against her breast. Those hands were empty. She had shut the door of her girlhood home against herself unless she returned, a gift in them. No--she would not go back there. All at once she became aware of a rhythmic sound, which made itself heard in the utter stillness of the forest night--Lance's deep breathing. He slept then; he could go to sleep like that, when she--. Callista faltered forward toward the front step; and as she did so, another sound overbore the slighter noise; it was the hoofs of an approaching horse.