Was it a dream—a nightmare of her fevered brain? Was she back again in the tortures of her long illness, with Lucy and Nell whispering behind the screen, wondering how soon the end would come? Had she imagined that dreadful struggle against overwhelming odds? If so, why was she lying here, gazing at the fitful firelight on the oak rafters of the kitchen instead of on her bed upstairs? Or was this too a dream—a strange, illogical fantasy of her diseased imaginings?

She was very tired—that much she knew—sick with long delirium or too great exertion. Her limbs were as lead. And at the back of her mind there hovered that dreadful shadow—was it memory? Was it illusion?—that filled her with a sense of terror indescribable.

But consciousness was returning. Her brain was groping for the truth, and the truth was coming to her gradually, inevitably, inexorably. She remembered her flight down the stairs, her headlong fall in the passage. She remembered the coming of Arthur, the brief interview in the kitchen, his terrible unspoken accusation. She remembered his kiss....

Again the anguish burned her soul; she thrust it from her with a sick shudder. It was more than she could bear.

Then she awoke to the fact that she was lying on the stones before the fire with a man’s coat spread under her. Trembling, she raised herself and found she was alone.

The moonlight filtered in through the bars of the unshuttered window, mingling with the firelight. The lamp that had burned on the dresser was gone. She found the table within her reach and dragged herself up by it, but it was many seconds before she mustered strength to stand alone.

At last with difficulty she made her way to the door that led into the passage, turned the handle and found it locked. Her heart stirred oddly within her like a stricken thing too weak for violent emotion. She crept round the room to the door into the yard. This also was locked and the key gone. The window was barred. She was a prisoner.

She went to the window and stood before it. It looked on to thick laurel bushes that successfully screened the farm-yard from view. Standing thus, there came to her a sudden sound across the stillness of the night, a sound that seemed to galvanize her to a more vivid consciousness of tragedy—the report of a gun. It was followed immediately by another, and then the silence fell again—a silence that could be felt. Tensely, with every nerve stretched, she listened, but though her ears sang with the effort she heard no more. The moonlight and the silence possessed the world.

She began to think of the Stones, of Rotherby and his fruitless vigil, of Oliver. And then—a thing of terror leaping out of the darkness—another thought seized upon her. Oliver’s warning—Rotherby’s danger—the gun-shot she had just heard. Following that, came the memory of her letter, delayed and at length delivered. That brought illumination. The letter had been opened and read. It was from that letter that Arthur had framed his conclusions. Recalling it, she realized that it had been couched in the terms of a lover. But what vile impulse had induced him to open it? And by what means had Oliver become aware of the danger? Her brain was alert now and leaping from point to point with amazing rapidity. Oliver’s knowledge had come from Ruth. Then there was some reason apart from that letter to herself for which Montague Rotherby was accounted an enemy. Remembering Oliver’s very obvious anxiety, she marvelled, seeking for an explanation. Was he aware of Arthur’s passion for herself? Had he really feared that jealousy might drive him to extremes? She found herself shivering again. What had actually happened? Had Rotherby been surprised at the Stones, waiting for her? Had Arthur——

A feeling of physical sickness came upon her so overwhelmingly that she had to sit down to combat it.

Slowly the minutes crawled away, and again through her fainting soul there beat the old, throbbing prayer: “From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, Good Lord deliver us.”

Her lips were still repeating the words mechanically when through the dreadful stillness there came at length a sound—the soft trying of the handle and then the turning of the key.

Frances raised her head. In that night of dreadful happenings she had not expected deliverance. The coming of it was like a dream. A small white figure stood on the threshold, barefooted, with face upraised, listening.

“Are you here?” whispered a childish voice.

“My dear!” Frances said.

The little figure came forward. The moonlight fell upon the upturned, flower-like face. “Please will you take me to sleep with you to-night?” she said.

Strength came back to Frances. The instinct to protect awoke within her, reviving her. She got up and went to the child.

“What made you come to me here, Rosebud?” she said.

“I thought you called me,” Ruth answered. “But perhaps it was a dream. I thought you were frightened, as you were that night at the Stones. You are very cold. Are you frightened?”

“I have been,” Frances said.

Ruth pressed close to her. “Has someone been unkind to you? Is it—is it Uncle Arthur?”

But Frances could not answer her. She was conscious of a weight of tears at her heart to which she dared not give vent.

“Shall we go upstairs?” said Ruth, with soft fingers entwined in hers. “And perhaps you will be able to sleep.”

She yielded to the child’s guidance as she had yielded before without hesitation or misgiving. They went out into the passage. But here a sudden sound made her pause—it was the opening of the door that led into the garden.

Ruth pulled at her hand. “It is only Grandpa. He is always late to bed.”

But Frances drew back sharply. “You run up, darling!” she whispered. “I can’t come yet.”

“Oh, please come!” said little Ruth.

But though she heard a piteous note in the child’s voice, she could not. She freed her hand from Ruth’s clasp. “Run up!” she repeated. “I will come afterwards—if I can.”

What impulse it was that urged her she could not have said, but it was too strong to be resisted. She saw Ruth start obediently but somewhat forlornly up the stairs, and she drew herself back into a deep recess under the staircase and crouched there, not breathing.

Ruth was right. It was the old man who had entered. She discerned him dimly as he came up the passage, moving with the weary gait of age. He paused at the kitchen-door as though he were listening, and she shrank more closely into her hiding-place, dreading discovery. But in a moment he pushed open the door and entered, closing it behind him.

Then the impulse to escape came to her, or perhaps it had been there, dormant against her breathless heart, the whole time. She saw the place as a monstrous prison, stone-walled and terrible, herself a captive guarded on all sides, helpless, beaten by circumstances, broken by Fate. And then this chance—this solitary chance of freedom.

Swiftly upon the closing of that door, she left her retreat, stole along the passage to the door, lifted the latch and was out upon the brick path in the moonlight.

The hollyhocks looked tall and ghostly; the garden lay before her as if asleep. She caught her shawl about her, and fled along the narrow path. She reached the door in the wall, and opening it peered forth. There was no weakness about her now. She was inspired by the strength that is borne of utter need.

She saw no one, and so slipped out on to the lawn by the bed of mignonette in front of the dairy-window. The scent of it rose up in the night like incense. As a thief she crept along in the shadow of the house to the gate that led into the farmyard.

And here Roger greeted her with loud yells of delight from his kennel. She cowered back against the wall, but he continued to cheer and make merry over her unexpected appearance for many seconds, till the conviction that his enthusiasm had failed to elicit any response from her suddenly dawned upon him, and he broke into howls of disappointment, punctuated with urgent whines of encouragement and persuasion.

Discovery seemed inevitable, and the courage of despair entered into Frances. Later she marvelled at herself, but at the time she was scarcely aware of making any effort, either mental or physical. Quite suddenly, as if propelled by a force outside her, she found herself calmly walking forward to the gate. It opened at her touch so easily that it might have been opened for her, and she walked through, hearing it swing creaking behind her between the renewed shouts of jubilation from Roger.

She passed him by, looking neither to right nor left, neither hastening nor lingering, hearing his wails of grief again behind her as she went. She reached the further gate and found it stood open to the lane. Very steadily she passed through and began to walk down the hill between the steep banks. The scent of honeysuckle came to her here, so overpoweringly that she caught her breath with an odd feeling of hurt.

Then—and it seemed to her later that this was the very thing she had been expecting—the one thing for which she had come—there sounded on the hill behind her the whirr of an engine, the slipping of wheels in the mud. Quite calmly still she turned and faced the lights of a small car coming rapidly down upon her. She did not know how it happened, or how near she was to death,—at that moment it would not have interested her to know—but she heard a shout and the sharp grinding of a brake applied to the utmost, followed by the ominous sound of locked wheels that grated to a standstill within a yard of her. Afterwards she remembered thinking that that hot, protesting engine was like a dragon baulked of its prey.

“Who is it?” cried a man’s voice. “What the devil do you want? I’m in a hurry.”

The voice was agitated; it had a desperate sound. This also she noticed, but her own was clear and calm.

“Will you take me with you?” she said. “I am going your way.”

“Frances!” he said in amazement.

“Will you take me?” she repeated.

“Of course I will take you! Get in! Get in!”

She moved along the side of the car. His hand came out to her, the door swung open.

The next moment they were rushing down the lane into a gulf of blackness, and she knew that the prison-walls would menace her no more.