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reserved, haughty and formal. So aloof, so icy, so cold, so indifferent. Gone now were the stiff, crisp, white, high-collared shirtwaist, closed by a brooch at the throat, the severe, ankle-length black dress, the dark stockings, the high, soft, black shoes, coming above the ankle, buttoned closed. She was reduced now, fleeing in the storm, naked, her hair unbound, outside civilization, to her female essentials, whose nature she had refused to recognize, whose meaning she had striven to suppress, whose destiny she had denied.
    â€œHello!” I called. “Where are you?” Surely she was risking illness in such weather. “I mean you no harm!”
    I wondered if she were mad, but I was somehow sure she was not. From where had she been brought? What was her purpose here?
    â€œHello!” I called.
    There was no answer. Only the wind and the rain.
    She has disobeyed, hasn’t she, I thought. That will require discipline. Then I thought, no, it is appropriate, now, that she disobey. It is fitting, and expected. She can be taught later.
    The switch, the riding crop, the whip, cords, suitable feedings, I thought, can reform, and make more precise, her behavior.
    Then I dismissed such thoughts, for they were improper, and radically inappropriate. My heart went out to the shivering waif.
    â€œHello!” I called, again, loudly, into the darkness.
    â€œHello!” I heard, from several yards away, out toward the cliffs and beach. A man’s voice.
    I hurried toward the voice. “Gavin,” I cried, “is that you?”
    â€œAye,” he responded. He was carrying a lantern.
    â€œDid you see her?” I cried.
    â€œAye!” he said. “She ran toward the cliffs.”
    We came within a few feet of one another.
    â€œWho is she?” asked Gavin.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “We must find her. What are you doing here, this late, in the storm?”
    He looked away, angrily, confused.
    â€œDid you want to talk to me?” I asked.
    â€œNo,” he said, surlily.
    â€œWhy are you here, about Hill House?” I asked.
    He did not respond.
    â€œYou were spying on me,” I said. “Why?”
    â€œI caught you now,” he said. “Going out to the beach! To make more mischief. Who is the girl?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said, angrily. “And I assure you I am not in the habit of busying myself with the making of idle mischief, nor of taking trips to the beach in the dark, in the middle of storms.”
    He, at least, had dressed for the weather.
    â€œIt is you, I note,” I said, “whom I find here in the dark.”
    â€œYou are not the fooler?” said Gavin.
    â€œNo,” I said. “And if there is a fooler here, it is surely you, not I.”
    In a flash of lightning the heath toward us, between us, who were near Hill House, and the cliffs, was suddenly, brightly illuminated.
    We saw no sign of the girl.
    â€œNo hard feelings?” asked Gavin.
    â€œNo,” said I, and we clasped hands, warmly. I put the blanket over my head, to gain what protection I could from the weather. I pulled it out a bit, so my eyes were shielded. I tried to wipe the rain from my eyes with the back of a wet hand.
    â€œShe was running toward the cliffs,” said Gavin.
    â€œThat is dangerous,” I said.
    â€œLet’s find her,” he said. The rain was pouring over the brim of his hat.
    Stay back.
    â€œWhy?” asked Gavin.
    â€œWhat?” I called.
    â€œWhy should I stay back?” he asked.
    â€œI didn’t say anything,” I called to him.
    â€œIt was the wind then,” said Gavin.
    We then, separated by some twenty yards or so, in the downpour, the moon muchly obscured by clouds, Gavin holding up the lantern, the heath brightened intermittently by flashes of lighting, went toward the cliffs.
    â€œThere she is!” cried Gavin, pointing.
    The small, white, pathetic figure was crouching