She was held in fright. All her nervous impulses impelled her to flight. Like a whip that was descending over her head, came the mirage from the gravestone until, in a mad, wild attempt to evade it, she flung about in the room as if to dash across and away from the window. Suddenly she was halted in her passage by the presence of Jim. The dim parlor was somehow filled with a sense of his being there, and in the dusk near the mantelpiece and at the head of the couch, there stood in shadowy outline her husband, come back.
"Jim!" she uttered, in a frightened gasp, and threw her hands outward to protect herself from his purpose. But she saw clearly the shadowy face and eyes that said unmistakably, "I have come for you."
She was terror-bound. There was no advance, for moving forward meant coming closer to that presence, meant walking into his very grasp.
She was about to speak, to plead for herself, to beg, "Jim, leave me."
In her terror and dread of his approach, she turned hastily to the window and leaped down. Wildly she scrambled up, bruised and shaken, and screaming hoarsely, while in unthinking terror she moved her hands, as if beating off unwelcome hands, she ran pantingly up the road which led to Deems's house.
The silence and the air of happy quietness that filled the house of her friends seemed to lay a spell upon Martha. Caring for her as if she were of the household, Deems and his wife were gratified by the change that apparently was coming over their charge.
In their room, after Martha had bid them good night, Deems questioned his wife.
"You couldn't tell she's the same woman. Remember how she was when we found her at the door that night--all mumbling and frightened so she couldn't talk? Well, now she's calm and happy like. What she needed was being with some one."
The quietness of her surroundings had had its effect on Martha. They showed in the calm self-possession with which she walked about, persisting in her efforts to help Mrs. Lennon in her household work. The atmosphere of bustling activity--Deems's coming and going from the village, from the cemetery, whither he went with his trowel and spade to keep in repairs the many graves and plots on the hillside--all this seemed to have drawn on some reservoir of unsuspected vitality and composure within Martha.