E Phillips Oppenheim

Anna the Adventuress E Phillips Oppenheim

The girl paused and steadied herself for a moment against a field gate. Her breath came fastin little sobbing pants. Her dainty shoes were soiled with dust and there was a great tear inher skirt. Very slowly, very fearfully, she turned her head. Her cheeks were the colour ofchalk, her eyes were filled with terror. If a cart were coming, or those labourers in the fieldhad heard, escape was impossible. The terror faded from her eyes. A faint gleam of returning colour gave her at once a morenatural appearance. So far as the eye could reach, the white level road, with its fringe ofelm-trees, was empty. Away off in the fields the blue-smocked peasants bent still at theirtoil. They had heard nothing, seen nothing. A few more minutes, and she was safe. Yet before she turned once more to resume her flight she schooled herself with an effort tolook where it had happened. A dark mass of wreckage, over which hung a slight mist ofvapour, lay half in the ditch, half across the hedge, close under a tree from the trunk ofwhich the bark had been torn and stripped. A few yards further off something grey, inert, was lying, a huddled-up heap of humanity twisted into a strange unnatural shape. Again thechalky pallor spread even to her lips, her eyes became lit with the old terror. She withdrewher head with a little moan, and resumed her flight. Away up on the hillside was the littlecountry railway station. She fixed her eyes upon it and ran, keeping always as far aspossible in the shadow of the hedge, gazing fearfully every now and then down along thevalley for the white smoke of the train. She reached the station, and mingling with a crowd of excursionists who had come fromthe river on the other side, took her place in the train unnoticed. She leaned back in herseat and closed her eyes. Until the last moment she was afraid