At times through the darkness a white sheet appeared
spread before the path and beneath the wheels of the buggy, which, when
withdrawn with a reluctant hiss, seemed striving to drag the exhausted
beach seaward with it. But the blind terror of her horse, who swerved at
every sweep of the surge, shamed her own half-superstitious fears,
and with the effort to control his alarm she regained her own
self-possession, albeit with eyelashes wet not altogether with the salt
spray from the sea. This was followed by a reaction, perhaps stimulated
by her victory over the beaten animal, when for a time, she knew not how
long, she felt only a mad sense of freedom and power; oblivious of
even her sorrows, her lost home and husband, and with intense feminine
consciousness she longed to be a man. She was scarcely aware that the
track turned again inland until the beat of the horse's hoofs on the
firm ground and an acceleration of speed showed her she had left the
beach and the mysterious sea behind her, and she remembered that she was
near the end of the first stage of her journey.
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