Still Colonel Cresswell waited but Zora
waited no longer. Alwyn must be warned. She must reach Cresswell's
mansion before Cresswell did and without him seeing her. This meant a
long detour of the swamp to approach the Oaks from the west. She
silently gathered up her skirts and walked quickly and carefully away.
She was a strong woman, lithe and vigorous, living in the open air and
used to walking. Once out of hearing she threw away her hat and bending
forward ran through the swamp. For a while she ran easily and swiftly.
Then for a moment she grew dizzy and it seemed as though she was
standing still and the swamp in solemn grandeur marching past--in solemn
mocking grandeur. She loosened her dress at the neck and flew on.
She sped at last through the oaks, up the terraces, and slowing down to
an unsteady walk, staggered into the house. No one would wonder at her
being there. She came up now and then and sorted the linen and piled the
baskets for her girls. She entered a side door and listened. The
Colonel's voice sounded impatiently in the front hall.
"Mary! Mary?"
A pause, then an answer:
"Yes, father!"
He started up the front stairway and Zora hurried up the narrow back
stairs, almost overturning a servant.
"I'm after the clothes," she explained. She reached the back landing
just in time to see Colonel Cresswell's head rising up the front
staircase.
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