But there was plenty to do.  She got herself into dry, warm clothes.  She leaned over her little charge, straightening and adjusting as best she could, shifting the little body as gently as was possible to the smaller mattress, covering it warmly but lightly.  As she did so she wondered which one of those long, moaning breaths would be the last; when would little Derry straighten himself—­and lie still?

No time to think of that.  She tied on her hat and veil, and went out to look at the car.  The rear seat was lined with pillows, the curtain drawn.  She had matches, her electric flashlight, her road maps, a flask of brandy—­what else?

Millie had run for neighbors, and the chains were finally adjusted.  The car had been made ready for the run, and was in good shape.

The big shadowy barn that was the garage was full of dancing shapes in the lantern-light.  The rain splashed and spattered incessantly outside; a black sky seemed to have closed down just over their heads.  She was in a fever to get away.

Slowly the dazzling headlights moved in the pitchy blackness, the wheels grated but held their own.  The car came to the side door, and the little mattress came out, and the muffled shape that was Mary got in beside it.  Then there was buttoning of storm curtains by willing hands, and many a whispered good wish to Rachael as she slipped in under the wheel.  Millie was beside her, at the last moment, begging to be of some use if she might.

“There’s just this, Mrs. Gregory,” said Ruddy Simms nervously, when the engine was humming, and, Rachael’s gloved hand racing the accelerator, “they say the tide’s making fast in all this rain!  I don’t know how you’ll do at the Bar.  She’s ugly a night, like this; what with the bay eating one side, and the sea breaking over the other!”

“Thank you,” Rachael said, not hearing him.  “God bless you!  Good-bye!”

She released the clutch.  The big car leaped forward, into the darkness.  The clock before her eyes said thirty-five minutes past seven.  Rain beat against the heavy cloth of the curtains, water swished and splashed under the wheels, and above the purring of the engine they could hear the clinking fall of the chains.  There was no other sound except when Derry caught a moaning breath.

Clark’s Hills passed in blackness, the road dropped down toward the Bar.  Rachael could feel that Mary, in the back seat, was praying, and that Millie was praying beside her.  Her own heart rose on a wild and desperate prayer.  If they could cross this narrow strip between the bay and the ocean, then whatever the fortune of the road, she could meet it.  Telephones, at least, were on the other side, resources of all sorts.  But to be stopped here!