She laughed aloud—a small, happy, confident laugh; and her lips framed the words, "Forgive me, Gilbert," and she sat for many minutes contrite and repentant because of the hateful, unworthy thing that had been in her mind but was there no longer.
She must have fallen asleep sitting in her grapevine swing; but only a few moments passed before she opened her eyes and saw the orbs that watched her. They were pale yellow-green and they were set wide apart, so that she knew at once that they were the eyes of some great beast. Across the glade near the swamp edge a short, squat live-oak stood amid the pines, and under it all was dark. It was from the edge of this blackness that the yellow-green orbs stared palely at Jolie.
She could see nothing except the eyes; but imagination filled out the crouching shape behind them and made it even more terrible than it really was. She sat as though turned to stone, and she felt her body grow cold as clay. Her breath came fast and her heart pounded within her. She tried to cry out, but no sound came from her lips, and somehow she did not try again.
She knew that the camp was not fifty yards' distant behind her. She could hear the voices of the men there, and she knew that by turning her head she could see them in the glare of the camp fires. But she could not turn her head, could not move her eyes from the terrible eyes that held her helpless, and it seemed to her that the camp was miles away.
