The Hollow of Her Hand
the outskirts of New York, she might have lost courage and decision. The natural confidence of an experienced driver was hers. She had the daring of one who has never met with an accident, and who trusts to the instincts rather than to an actual understanding of conditions. With her, it was not a question of her own capacity and strength, but a belief in the fidelity of the engine that carried her forward. It had not occurred to her that the task of guiding that heavy, swerving thing through the unbroken road was something beyond her powers of endurance. She often had driven it a hundred miles and more without resting, or without losing zest in the enterprise: then why should she fear the small matter of thirty miles, even under the most trying of conditions?     

       The restless, driving desire to be as far as possible from that horrid sight at the inn, with all that went to make it repellant, put strength into her arms. The car swung from one side of the road to the other, picking its way through the opaque desert, reeling from rut to rut past hideous shadows and deeper into the black abyss that lay ahead. No friendly light gleamed by the wayside; the world was black and cold and dead. She alone was on the highway, the only human creature who defied the night. Off there on either side people lived, and slept, and were in darkness just as she was, but not in dreadful darkness. They were not pursued by ghosts; they were not running away from a Thing! They slept and were at peace, and their lights were out for they were not afraid in the dark. She thought of it: she was alone! No other creature was abroad—not one!     

       Sharply there came to her mind the question: was she the only one abroad in this black little world? What of the other woman? The one who was being hunted? Where was she? And what of the ghost at HER heels?     

       The car bounded over a railroad crossing. She recalled the directions given by the man at the station and hastily applied the brake. There was another and more dangerous crossing a hundred yards ahead. She had been warned particularly to take it carefully, as there was a sharp curve in the road beyond.     

       Suddenly she jammed down the emergency brake, a startled exclamation falling from her lips. Not twenty feet ahead, in the middle of the road and directly in line with the light of the lamps, stood a black, motionless 
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