She went out
again feeling almost calm.
But that night her terrors came back upon her in ghastly array. She
could not sleep, and lay listening to every sound. Finally she fell into
an uneasy doze, from which she started to hear the dog in the yard
barking furiously. She lay shivering for a while, then crept to her
window and looked out. The dense shadow of a pine wood across the road
blotted out the starlight, and all was very dark. It was impossible to
discern anything. She stood listening intently in the darkness.
The dog subsided into a growling monotone, and through the stillness she
fancied she caught a faint sound, as if some animal were prowling softly
under the trees. She listened with a thumping heart. Nearer it seemed to
come, and nearer, and then she heard it no more. A sudden gust stirred
the pine tops, and a sudden, overmastering panic filled her soul.
With the violence of frenzy she slammed and bolted her window, and made
a wild spring back to the bed. She burrowed down under the blankets, and
lay there huddled, not daring to stir for a long, long time.
With the first glimmer of day came relief, but she did not sleep. The
night's terror had left her nerves too shaken for repose. Yet as the sun
rose and the farmyard sounds began, as she heard the mill-wheel creak
and turn and the rush and roar of the water below, common sense came to
her aid, and she was able to tell herself that her night alarm might
have been due to nothing more than her own startled imagination.
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