d it was at night the thing developed. A slow-driving inquisition,
night after night. It drove her through and beyond the deadly fever
lassitude. She was not building up out of it; she was beaten down
below it. She was beaten through all the successive stages of breaking
nerves. She used all the known arguments, all the intellectual methods
to sustain pure courage, to hold herself immune. She used them all up.

At first, when her husband came up for his weekends, he was quite
evidently pleased with his arrangement. And it would take a
self-confidence which had long since gone a-glimmering out of her, to
break in on his enthusiasm with any criticism of his provisions for her
comfort; certainly no criticism on any basis of noise. It has been
said that Police Commissioner Hichens was an unapproachable man; and
some things are impossible. One can die, you know, any death. But
some things are entirely impossible.

The day came when she dragged her weary weight up from the couch and
drove her unsteady frame along the new pathway through jungle thickets
toward the village. The idea had been gnawing in her consciousness for
days; to find the nearest house or hut or any kind of place where human
beings lived, so as to have it in her mind where to run when the time
came. It had come to that. It went in circles through her brain; when
the time came to run, she positively must know where to run.

Her progress was slow and painful. When her limbs shook so she could
not stand alone, she leaned against a tree. She must not lie down on
the ground on account of the centipedes and scorpions.

"Hello--"

Startled a little, she turned toward the voice. A man's voice, very
low. It came from somewhere behind her. She broke away from her
support and the fever-surge caught her and whipped her from head to
foot. Her balance was going--

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

She was kept from falling by the arm of the stranger.

"No. It's the fever. I assure you it's the fever."

Now he just steadied her with one hand. The fever was filling her
brain with a dull haze. . . . He was slender and not tall. He was
much bronzed. She could see only his eyes and his mouth. He spoke
again:

"Why are you alone in this jungle--with such a fever?"

The words dropped into her consciousness; even, smooth, like pebbles
gently released into water.

Then the blackness of outer darkness came up between.

. . .