An owl was hooting in the moonlit distance, and the ripple, ripple, ripple of running water filled in the silences. A vast loneliness—the loneliness of the moors at night which is somehow like an unseen presence—wrapped the whole world as in a mantle which the weird cry of the wandering bird pierced but could not lift. The scent of wet bog-myrtle with now and then a waft of late honeysuckle was in the air. And from the east, silver, majestic, wonderful, a moon that was nearly full mounted upwards to her throne above the earth.

The rough track that led to the Stones was clearly defined in its radiance, and the Stones themselves stood up like sentinels on the hill. A wonderful place! Yes, a wonderful place, but how desolate, and barbaric in its desolation!

A woman stood at the gate that opened from the lane on to that steep track. She had walked up from the village in the moonlight, and before her it was as clear as day, but she stood as one hesitating to emerge from the shadows. Her hands were folded together as if in prayer.

A vagrant breeze stirring the high hedges that bordered the lane made her turn her head sharply to listen, and a faint, vague sound from down the hill brought a further movement of attention from her. But the sound ceased—it might have been some scurrying wild thing—the wind died down, sighing sadly away, and all was quiet again, save for that unseen, trickling water, and the far, haunting cry of the owl on the hill-side.

But her own movement had given her courage, or perhaps she feared to remain; for she paused no longer at the gate. Noiselessly she opened it and passed through. Then closing it, she stood for a moment, looking back. Down the lane a light glimmered, fitfully, seen through tree-branches—Tetherstones.

Her eyes sought it with a certain wistfulness, dwelt upon it, then resolutely, with a sigh half-checked she turned and mounted the hill, walking rapidly and soundlessly over the short grass beside the track. Nearer and nearer she drew to the Stones in their gaunt splendour, and the spell of the place encompassed her like an enchantment; but she hesitated no more. Firmly, steadfastly, she pursued her way.

Once indeed she gave a great start as a horned creature blundered suddenly up in front of her, and dashed away with clattering feet over the scattered stones, but she checked her instinctive alarm with swift self-assertion. It was only a goat more startled than herself. What was there to fear?

She came at last into the great circle, pushing through coarse straggling grass till she reached the smooth, boulder-strewn turf where the sheep and the goats had grazed. And here she stopped and looked around her in the moonlight with the feeling strong upon her that she was being watched.

Again, with an effort of will, she dismissed the thought. It was the stark emptiness of the place that induced it; of that she was certain. For there was no sign of movement anywhere; only the great Tether Stones standing round, a grim challenge to the centuries. She turned slowly after a time and faced the Rocking Stone. More than ever now in the moonlight had it the appearance of rolling towards her, as though set in motion by some unseen hand. And she shuddered as she watched it. The eeriness of the place was beginning to fold itself around her irresistibly, almost suffocatingly.

“Why should I be afraid?” she whispered to herself, clenching her hands desperately to keep down the panic that was knocking at her heart. “There is nothing here to hurt me. They are only stones.”

Only stones! Yet they seemed to threaten her by their very immobility, their coldness, their silence. She was an intruder in their midst, and whichever way she turned that sensation of being watched went with her, oppressed her. The hooting of the owl in the distance was somehow like the calling of a lost spirit, wandering to and fro, seeking rest—and finding none.... There was no other sound in all the world, though her ears were strained to listen. Even the music of the streams was hushed up here.

“They are only stones,” she said to herself again, and began to walk down the centre of the circle towards the Rocking Stone, defying that engulfing, fateful silence with all her strength. Within a dozen yards of it something stopped her, as surely as if a hand had caught her back. She stood still, not breathing.

Was it fancy? Was it reality? The monstrous thing was moving! Like a seated giant giving her salutation it swayed slowly forward. And what were those long, crimson streaks upon it that gleamed as if wet in the moonlight?

She stood as one transfixed, possessed by horror. A devil’s paradise! The words rushed meteor-like through her brain. Surely this gruesome place was haunted by devils!

Fascinated, she watched the great stone. Would it leave its resting-place, roll down to her, annihilate her? Had it started upon its dread course she knew she could not have avoided it. She was paralyzed by terror, possibly the more intense because of its utter unreason.

That some animal might have set the thing in motion was a possibility that did not even cross her mind. She knew, without any proof, that some evil influence was at work. She could feel it with every gasping breath she drew.

Downwards and yet further downwards rocked the great Stone, and at the last there came a grinding noise as though some substance were being pulverized beneath it. It was unutterably horrible to the looker-on, but still she could not turn and flee. She was as much a prisoner as though she were indeed tethered to one of those grim monsters that stood about her.

Spell-bound as one in a nightmare, she stood and watched, quaking and powerless, saw the thing begin to lift again like some prehistoric beast of prey rising from its slaughtered victim, saw it roll slowly back again soundlessly, as if on hinges, with the inevitable poise which alone kept it in its place, saw the dreadful crimson streaks and patches that dripped down its scarred front. And suddenly the bond that held her snapped. She turned from the dreadful sight and fled through the ghastly solitude as if she fled for her life.

Again the cry of the owl sounded, much nearer now, and she thought it was the shriek of a pursuing demon. Through that grass-grown place of sacrifice she tore like the wind, so goaded by fear as to be hardly conscious of direction. And now the shriek of the demon had become a yell of mocking laughter that died away with dreadful echoes among the Stones....

She reached the open hill-side beyond that awful Circle, and here abruptly she was stayed. A maddening pain awoke in her side and she could go no further. The pain was acute for a few seconds, and she crouched in the grass in her extremity, fighting for breath. Then, gradually recovering, she began to tell her racing heart that she had fled from shadows. Yet it was no shadow that had moved that Rocking Stone.

Her strength returned to her at last and she stood up. But she could not return to that terrible trysting-place. Her knees were shaking still. There was only one course left if she would keep her tryst, and though her whole soul shrank from the thought of it, yet was she in honor bound to fulfil that pledge. Since she could not return, she must wait on the hill-side till he came. The appointed time must be drawing near now, and if she knew him he would not be late.

Even with the thought there rose a sound from the valley below her,—a clear and beautiful sound that went far to dispel that sense of lurking evil that so oppressed her—the church-clock striking ten. It renewed her courage, it stilled that wild, insensate fear within her. It gave her the power that belongs to purity.

No longer weak and stumbling, she left the spot where she had crouched and walked across the grass towards the track by which he would come. And as she went, there came to her the clang of the gate that led out of the lane. He was coming!

She realized abruptly that she could not stand and await him in the full moonlight. The shadows of the Stones fell densely not fifty yards away, and, conquering that instinct that urged her in the opposite direction, she directed her steps towards them. The consciousness of another human presence went far to disperse the ghostly influence of the place. The definite effort that lay before her drove the thought of forces less concrete into the background. At the very entrance to the arena, screened by the shadow of the first great Tether Stone she waited for him.

Immediately below her was the cattle-shed with its thatched roof, within which she and Montague Rotherby had found shelter on that night of fog when deliverance had so wonderfully come to her. Her mind dwelt upon the memory for a moment, then swiftly flashed back to the present, for, distinct in the stillness, there came to her the sound of his feet upon the track. Her heart gave a wild bound of recognition. How well she knew that sound!

Slow and regular and unfalteringly firm, they mounted the steep ascent while she stood waiting in the shadow. Now she could see him, a dark and powerful figure, walking with bent head, coming straight towards her, pursuing his undeviating course. Now he was close at hand. And now—

What moved her suddenly to look towards the cattle-shed—the flash of something that gleamed with a steely brightness in the moonlight, or an influence more subtle and infinitely more compelling. She knew not, but in that moment she looked, and looking, sprang forward with a cry. For in the entrance, clear against the blackness behind, she saw a face, corpse-like in its whiteness, but alive with a murderous malice,—the face of a devil.

Her cry arrested the man upon the path. He stood still, and she rushed to him with arms outspread, intervening between him and the evil thing that lurked in the shed.

She reached him, flung her arms around him. “Arthur—Arthur! For God’s sake—come away from this dreadful place—this dreadful place!”

Wildly she poured forth the words, seeking with frantic urgency to turn him from the path. But he stood like a rock, resisting her.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

She tried to tell him, but explanation failed. “I came to meet you, but—there is—there is something dreadful in the barn. Don’t go near! Come away! Oh, come away!”

But still he stood, resisting her desperate efforts to move him. “I have come to meet Rotherby,” he said. “You go—and let me meet him alone!”

The curt words steadied her somewhat, but she could not let him go. “Arthur, please,—listen!” she urged. “He isn’t here. I came in his place. But there is something terrible in the shed. I don’t know what. I only know—I only know—that the whole place is full of evil, and the thing I saw—the thing I saw—is probably one of many.”

She was trembling violently, and his hand came up and supported her. “Oh, why did you come?” he said, and his tone held more of reproach than questioning.

She answered him notwithstanding. “I had to come. There was no choice. But don’t let us stay! I have seen the Rocking Stone move. I have seen—a thing like a devil in the barn.”

“How long have you been here?” he said.

She was shivering still. “I don’t know—a long time. But that awful thing——”

He turned towards the barn. “Your nerves have been playing you tricks,” he said. “There is nothing here.”

She hung back, still clinging to him, reassured by his confidence in spite of herself, yet afraid beneath her reassurance.

“It couldn’t have been fancy. I am not fanciful. Arthur, don’t go! Don’t go!”

He stopped and looked at her, and in his eyes was that which strangely moved her, stilling her entreaty, overwhelming her fear, banishing every thought in her heart but the one great rapture of her soul as it leaped to his.

So for a long moment they stood, then his arm went round her. He turned aside.

“We will go to the Stones,” he said, “and leave these banshees to look after themselves. It was probably a goat you saw.”

She went with him, almost convinced that he was right and that her fancy had tricked her. She would have gone with him in that moment if all the ghosts of the centuries had awaited them among the Stones.

As they passed into the great arena, he uttered a groan, and his arm relaxed and fell. “This is absolute madness,” he said. “I told you before. I am tied. I am a prisoner. I shall never be free.” The iron of despair was in his voice.

“Then I will be a prisoner too,” she said.

“No—no! Why did that scoundrel send you to me? Why didn’t he come himself?” He flung the words passionately, as though the emotions surging within him were greater than he could control.

But she answered him steadfastly, without agitation. “Arthur, listen! He sent me to you because he is ashamed of all that has gone before—and because he wished to make amends. He has gone out of my life. But I have forgiven him, and—some day—I hope you will forgive him too.”

“Never!” he said. “Never! I would have killed him with my naked hands if I had had the chance.”

She suppressed a shiver at the memory his words called up. “That is not worthy of you. Forgiveness is a greater thing than revenge—oh, so much greater. And love is greater than all. You won’t believe it, but—he was capable of love.”

“He was capable of anything,” Arthur said, “except playing a straight game.”

“You are wrong,” she said earnestly. “You are wrong. He has played a straight game now in telling you the truth and in sending me to you. He made me come, do you understand? I didn’t want to—I would rather have done anything than come. But he would have come himself if I hadn’t. And so——”

“You came to save his life?” suggested Arthur, with a bitter sneer.

She answered him with the simplicity that is above bitterness. “I came to save you both.”

He looked at her with a certain grimness. “And why didn’t you want to come?”

Again with absolute directness she answered him. “Because I knew how it would hurt you to send me away again.”

He swung away from her and again she heard him groan. “This is well named the place of sacrifice,” he said. “Do you remember the day I first brought you here? I loved you then, and I knew it was hopeless—utterly hopeless. It is more so than ever now. I can’t go on. I won’t go on. This thing has got to stop. God knows I have fought it. You have got to fight it too,—go on fighting till it dies.”

“It will rise again,” she said.

His hands clenched. “I’ve never been beaten yet,” he said.

To which she made no answer, for she knew, as he did, that there is no power in earth or heaven so omnipotent as the power of Love.

They went on together, side by side down that great arena, the gaunt Stones all around them like monstrous idols in a forgotten place of worship. They drew near to the Rocking Stone, and very suddenly Arthur stopped.

He stood before it in utter silence, and she wondered what was passing in his mind. The moonlight shone full upon the face of the Stone. She saw again those strange red streaks of which old Mr. Dermot had told her. But her fear was gone, swallowed up in that which was infinitely greater—her love for the man at her side.

How long they stood thus she did not know. She began to realize that he was bracing himself anew for sacrifice, that he was battling desperately for the mastery against odds such as even he had never faced before. She saw him once more as a gladiator, terrible in his resolution, indomitable as the Stone he faced, invincible so long as the breath remained in his body. His last words kept hammering in her brain with the swing and rhythm of a haunting refrain: “I’ve never been beaten yet—I’ve never been beaten yet.” And through them, faint, thread-like as a far-off echo, she heard another voice—whether of child or angel she knew not: “You’ll find it up by the Stones, where the giant hare-bells grow. It’s the most precious thing in the world, and when you find it, keep it—always—always—always!”

The giant hare-bells! There they grew at the foot of that grim Stone where the child had lain all night, unafraid because God was there. She saw them, pale in the moonlight, and in memory of little Ruth she stooped to gather one.

It was then that it happened,—so suddenly, so appallingly,—with a crash as if the heavens were rent above her. A blinding red flame seemed to spring from the very ground in front of her, the smell of burning choked her senses. The whole world rocked and burst into a blaze. She went backwards, conscious of Arthur’s arms around her, conscious that they fell together ... or were they hurled into space among the wandering star-atoms to drift for evermore hither and thither—spirits without a home?

“From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, from Thy wrath—and from everlasting damnation” (that dreadful irremediable doom in which she had never believed), “Good Lord, deliver us.”