Without a word or a sound--her voice had deserted her--she turned
precipitately and fled in the opposite direction through the corridor,
down a cross-hall, and burst out of a side door upon a porch that was the
nearest outlet from the building. This porch was less intended as an
exit, however, than an outlook. True, there were steps that led down at
one side to the ground, but the descent thence was so steep, so rugged
and impracticable, that obviously no scheme of utility had prompted its
construction. Jagged outcropping ledges, a chaos of scattered boulders,
now and again a precipitous verge showing a vertical section of the
denuded strata, all formed a slant so precarious and steep that with the
sharp sound of the door, closing on its spring, Bayne looked up from his
seat in the swing on the veranda across the ravine in blank amazement to
see her there essaying the descent, as if in preference to an exit by the
safe and easy method of the winding road at the front of the edifice.
Lillian, still with all the impetus of terror in her muscles, her breath
short and fluttering, her eyes distended and unseeing, plunged wildly
down the rugged, craggy declivity, painfully aware of his wonder as he
gazed from the distance, prefiguring, too, his disapproval.
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