still, irresolute, turned back, then homewards again, drawn this way and that by her tormenting anxiety, uncertain what to do: until at last the instinct of self-preservation, the need of collecting her thoughts and concentrating her strength for the decisive battle, drove her home as a wounded animal takes refuge in its lair.
The instant she got inside the presbytery she shut the door and sat down heavily on the bottom stair. From the top of the staircase came the dim flickering light of the lamp, and everything within the little house, up to now as steady and quiet as a nest built in some crevice of the rocks, seemed to swing from side to side: the rock was shaken to its foundations and the nest was falling to the ground.
Outside the wind moaned and whistled more loudly still; the devil was destroying the presbytery, the church, the whole world of Christians.
"Oh Lord, oh Lord!" wailed the mother, and her voice sounded like the voice of some other woman speaking.
Then she looked at her own shadow on the
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