The girls had actually paused at the verge of the lake, just in front of their hiding-place; so near, in fact, that by stretching out his arm, from behind his willowy screen, Dangelis could have touched Gladys on the shoulder, when the fearfully expected voice broke forth again upon the night. The men could see the visible tremor of panic-fear quiver through Lacrima’s slight frame. “Oh, let us go!--let us go!” she pleaded, pulling with feverish fingers at her companion’s cloak. But Gladys folded her arms and flung back her head. “Little coward!” she murmured in a low unshaken voice. “I am not afraid of a mad girl’s yelling. Look! there’s one of those birds going back to the island!” Once more the inhuman wail trembled across the water. “Gladys! Gladys dear!” cried the panic-stricken girl, “I cannot endure it! I shall go mad myself if we do not go! I’ll do anything you ask me! I’ll go anywhere with you! Only--please--let us go away now!” The sound was repeated again, and this time it proceeded from a quarter much nearer them. All four listeners held their breath. Presently the Italian made a terrified gesture and pointed frantically to the right bank of the lake. “I see her!” she cried, “I see her! She is coming towards us!” The frightened girl made a movement as if she would break away from her companion and flee into the darkness of the trees. Gladys clasped her firmly in her arms. “No--no!” she said, “no running off! Remember our agreement! There’s nothing really to be afraid of. I’m not afraid.” A slight quiver in her voice a little belied the calmness of this statement. She was indeed torn at that moment between a very natural desire to escape herself and an insatiable craving to prolong her companion’s agitation. In her convulsive terror the Italian, unable to free herself from the elder girl’s enfolding arms, buried her head in the other’s cloak. Thus linked, the two might have posed for a picture of heroic sisterly solicitude, in the presence of extreme danger. Once more that ghastly cry resounded through the silence; and several nocturnal birds, from distant portions of the wood, replied to it with their melancholy hootings. The white-garbed figure of the mad girl, her arms tossed tragically above her head, came swaying towards them. She moved unevenly, and staggered in her advance, as if her volition had not complete power over her movements. Gladys was evidently considerably alarmed herself now. She clutched at a chance of combining escape with triumph. “Say you let me off that promise!” she whispered hoarsely, “and we’ll run together! We’re quite close to the way out.” Who can read the obscure recesses of the human mind, or gauge the supernatural strength that lurks amid the frailest nerves? This reference to her sublime contract was the one thing needed to rouse the abandoned soul of the Pariah. For one brief second more the powers of darkness struggled over her bowed head with the powers of light.