THE sun was not yet risen when Peregrine left the cottage. To the west, behind the hills, the sky glowed faintly luminous. Around him the valley lay yet in dusk, through which the trees and bushes reared ghostly arms, white-shrouded, very spectre-like. The air was alive with an intense purity, exceeding still, yet vital.

Away to the right, beyond the church, he saw a square building. A cross crowning it at one end, he judged it the retreat of holy men or women,—monks or nuns. Through the narrow slits of windows came the gleam of pale candlelight, showing the occupants of the building already astir, busy with Ave or Paternoster, possibly kneeling devout at Mass. Even as he looked a bell rang out, its clear tone piercing the silence. Habit caused him to bow his head. The action was involuntary; he had done with such matters long since, or fancied to have done with them. In either case it comes to the same for the time being. We need not be nice as to the interpolation of a word.

Turning to the south he took the road towards the opening between the hills. It lay, very smoothly white, between a snow-shrouded wall on the one side, and a fence on the other. Now he noticed a single line of footprints in the snow, small and clear, passing on before him. His imagination fired on the instant, he followed in their wake. They led him clean through the village to a pine wood on its outskirts, beyond which lay the route between the hills.

The sun was up by the time he reached its edge, gilding the western sky, flooding the earth with its beams. Following the footsteps he entered the wood, found himself caught in its mystic silence. Here was the brooding stillness, the peace of some vast cathedral. Between the aisles of the pine trees the chequered light straggled but a little way. This emphasized the solitude. The soul of the place seemed withdrawn from sensible light and warmth into a great silence.

Less conscious of the atmosphere around him than of the footsteps he was following, Peregrine pursued his way. A very certain hope beat in his heart. It was perchance less hope than certainty. As he walked he looked not at the trees around him, but at the footprints on the ground. The snow had fallen sparsely between the pines, covering the path but thinly. In the footmarks he could see the brown of the pine needles, and here and there a glint of green moss. For the space of some half hour he walked; the wood extended further than he had believed on entering it. On either hand he saw the tracks of tiny feet, of birds, of mice, of rabbits. Down a glen gleamed the berries of a rowan tree, scarlet against the darkness of the pines. A few fallen berries below it shone blood-red on the snow.

At length he gained the further outskirts of the wood, came into full sunshine. Here was moorland stretching upward right and left to the hills; before him it narrowed to the pass between them. Some hundred yards or so ahead of him he saw a rude cottage, mud-walled, thatched with rushes and bracken. It stood solitary in the expanse of snow. The footprints led towards it. You may be very sure that Peregrine followed the footprints.

Coming up to the cottage he peered through the small square opening that served for window. Now verily his heart beat to suffocation. This is what he saw.

The middle of the floor held a rough bier; a coarse linen sheet was drawn over that which lay upon it. Two candles stood at the head, their flame pale and insignificant in the sunshine which fell through the window. He did not mark a woman sleeping at the far end of the room, lying, most evidently exhausted, on a heap of moss and skins. His eyes were all for a veiled figure kneeling by the bier. Flashing through his mind came Simon’s words.

“Seek her in death’s chamber. She closes the eyes of the dead.”

You may well believe his heart cried, “At last!” The weary months of his quest sank from him. He had found her. Past difficulties had vanished; past fatigue was forgotten in present rest; past heart-burning in present happiness. He dared not yet make his presence known. It was enough that there she knelt, her head bowed towards the bier. You see him humbled. He had doubted his dream at times. It was now embodied before him. Here was enough to bow a man to the earth, to abase his soul, the while joy raised it high. So for a little space he stood entranced. Going at last to the door, he put his hand upon the latch.

The sound of its raising roused the kneeling woman. She got to her feet. A gentle-faced nun she stood there, looking at the man in the doorway.

“Sir?” she said questioningly, her voice very low.

Peregrine was as one turned to stone. His heart was sick within him.

“Sir,” she said again very gently, “what seek you? Here is death present.”

Peregrine looked at her. A mad desire to laugh assailed him. Yet courtesy was ever strong upon him.

“Madam, I crave your pardon,” he said hoarsely. “I—I have made a mistake.” Blindly he turned from the door, stumbled out into the snow.