Notwithstanding the one engrossing thought of the moment, something met
her eye that caused even the vacant organ to recoil, and every fibre in
her frame to tremble with terror. There was a moment in which delirium
nearly heightened terror to madness. Reflection came only when Ruth had
reached the distance of many feet from the spot where this startling
object had half-unconsciously crossed her vision. Then for a single and a
fearful instant she paused, like one who debated on the course she ought
to follow. Maternal love prevailed, and the deer of her own woods scarcely
bounds with greater agility, than the mother of the sleeping and
defenceless family now fled towards the dwellings. Panting and breathless
she gained the postern, which was closed, with hands that performed their
office more by instinct than in obedience to thought, and doubly and
trebly barred.
For the, first time in some minutes, Ruth now breathed distinctly and
without pain. She strove to rally her thoughts, in order to deliberate on
the course that prudence and her duty to Content, who was still exposed to
the danger she had herself escaped, prescribed.
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