In the evening Fledra waited wide-eyed and sleepless until the household was quiet, and while she waited she pondered dully upon a plan to escape.  Toward night two faint hopes had taken possession of her:  Everett Brimbecomb could help her; Pappy Lon might.  Before leaving Floyd and severing her connections with Horace, she would appeal to the squatter and his lawyer.  She opened the window and looked out.  It was but a short drop to the path at the side of the house.

At half-past ten Fledra slipped into her coat and set a soft, light cap upon her black curls.  In another minute she had reached the road and had turned toward Brimbecomb’s.  To escape any eyes in the house she had just left, she scurried to the graveyard.  For an instant only did she halt, and, somber-eyed, glance over the graves.  She could easily mark the spot where she had lain so long with Floyd, and tears welled into her eyes as she thought of him.  How many things had happened since then!  In hasty review came week after week of the time she had spent with Horace and Ann.  How she loved them both!  Turning, she scanned the gloomy Brimbecomb house.  In the servants’ quarters at the top several lights burned, while on the drawing-room floor a gas-jet shot forth its beams into Sleepy Hollow.  If Mr. Brimbecomb were at home, then he must be in that room.  Fledra crouched under the window.

“Mr. Brimbecomb!  Mr. Brimbecomb!” she called.

Silence, as dense as that in God’s Acre near her, reigned in the house.  She called again, a little louder.  Suddenly she heard a rapid step upon the road and crept back again to the corner of the building.

Everett Brimbecomb was passing under the arc light, and Fledra could see his handsome face plainly in its rays.

He stopped a moment and looked at Shellington’s house, with a shrug of his shoulders.  Again he resumed his way; but halted as Fledra called his name softly.  From her hiding-place in the shadow of the porch she came slowly forward.

“Can I talk with you a few moments, Mr. Brimbecomb?” she faltered.  “I know that you can help me, if you will.”

Everett’s heart began to beat furiously.  Something in the appealing girl attacked him as nothing else had.  How slim she looked, how lithe and graceful, and yet so childishly young!  He compared her with Ann in rapid thought, and remembered that he had never felt toward Horace’s sister as he did toward this obscure girl.

“Come in,” he murmured; “we can’t talk here.  Come in.”

“Let me tell you out here in the night,” stammered Fledra.

Everett touched her arm, urging her forward.

“They may see us from the Shellingtons’,” he said; and, in spite of her unwillingness, he forced her up the steps.  Like the wind of a hurricane, a mixture of emotions stormed in his soul.  He dared not do as he wished and take the girl in his arms.  He checked his desire to force his love upon her, and motioned to a chair, into which Fledra sank.  Like shining ebony, her black hair framed a death-pale face.  The darkness of a new grief had deepened the shade in the mysterious eyes.  For an instant she paused on the edge of tears.