Gwendolen awoke in daylight. At least, half in daylight: she had run all night and collapsed under a bush. Half of her was now poking out of it. The shadow was hiding also, she knew. It could not travel by day because it was too obvious, she guessed—too easily seen. She stiffly pulled her legs in as she heard the sound of cracking twigs and crinkling leaves. There were voices nearby. Gwendolen picked out Dumbee’s deep matter-of-fact voice among two others.
“This has been a great success, even though my hand was burnt…They cannot refuse me with the thing that I have acquired from their tower. Once we get there we will make them believe…” she heard him say. She could not hear the rest as they grew farther away.
‘Make them believe…’ she thought. As she lay under the bush, staring at the sky through the leaves, an anger arose from deep inside of her.
A Dream of Writing 