around

livelier now—that’s

it to the boat.”
“We might,” Hogan said. “But it won’t let us get far. If it hears the outboard start, it can cut us off easily before we’re out of the bay.”
“Oh, no!” she said, shocked. She hesitated. “But then what can we do?”
Hogan said, “Right now it’s busy soaking up heat. That gives us a little time. I have an idea. Julia, will you promise that—just once—you’ll stay here, keep quiet, and not call after me or do anything else you shouldn’t?”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“I won’t leave the cellar,” Hogan said soothingly. “Look, darling, there’s no time to argue. That thing upstairs may decide at any moment to start looking around for us—and going by what it did to the front wall, it can pull the whole lodge apart. . . . Do you promise, or do I lay you out cold?”
“I promise,” she said, after a sort of frosty