e broken woman leaned forward, baiting him. The strange look of
exaltation and sacrifice burned in her faded eyes. "I've got you,
Mart!" she jeered. "You're going to swing yet! I'll even up with you
for Tobey! You didn't think I could do it, did you? I'll show you!
You're trapped, I tell you! And I done it!"

She watched Mart swing around to search the room and the blank
window with apprehensive eyes. She sensed his eerie dread of the
unseen. He couldn't see any one. He couldn't hear a sound. She saw
that he was wet with the cold perspiration of fear. It would enrage
him. She counted on that. He turned back to his wife in a white fury.
She leaned toward him, inviting his blows as martyrs welcome the
torch that will make their pile of fagots a blazing bier.

He struck her. Once. Twice. A rain of blows given in a blind passion
that drove her to her knees, but she clung stubbornly, with rigid
fingers to the table-edge. Although she was dazed she retained
consciousness by a sharp effort of her failing will. She had not yet
achieved that for which she was fighting.

The dull thud of the blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood
drove the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering
feet. Her rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only
friend she recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across
the table. She stood swaying in a petrified terror for a moment.
Then with a thin wail, "He's killing her!" she ran around them and
gained the door.

With a mighty effort Olga Brenner lifted her head so that her face,
swollen beyond recognition, was turned toward her mother-in-law. Her
almost sightless eyes fastened themselves on the old woman.

"Run!" she cried. "Run to the village!"

The mad woman, obedient to that commanding voice, flung open the
door and lurched over the threshold and disappeared in the fog. It
came to Mart that the woman running through the night with the wail
of terror was the greatest danger he would know. Olga Brenner saw
his look of sick terror. He started to spring after the mad woman,
forgetful of the half-conscious creature on her knees before him.

But as he turned, Olga, moved by the greatness of her passion,
forced strength into her maimed body. With a straining leap she
sprawled herself before him on the floor. He stumbled, caught for
the table, and fell with a heavy crash, striking his head on a
near-by chair. Olga raised herself on her shaking arms and looke