When I opened my eyes I found myself lying alone half under the bedstead. The body of my friend, no longer there, must have been very quietly taken away. It was found in the river, high up about Wargrave.

I gathered up my hat and some telegrams scattered over the floor, and passed out, for the door of the room I found to be now open, so also was the door below. I think that I met no one on the stairs.

I next found myself in a train, and noticed now that it was evening at the sight of one of those sunsets that for three evenings had surprised everyone. Some men in the train were wildly talking, and though I heard little more of it than "Church" and "miracles," and "downfall," I can vividly remember their vowels of wonder and agitated jabbering.

On arriving at Alresford I got into a car to go to Swandale, but half-way to Swandale got out again, for I was now in no haste to be there, so it came into my head to walk, and at one moment I walked, at another I was standing still, at another I rabidly ran. In Swandale, when I was crossing the bridge toward the cottage, I beheld an old man named Davenport at the cottage-door whispering to two maid-servants, one of whom darted away, and when I had come to the cottage, "quite well, I hope, sir?" this old man mumbled to me, "fine evening, sir." "None o' that," I said to him, "where is Miss Langler?" "This way, sir," he answered, and ushered me into the morning-room. But I was no sooner in than the doorway was blocked with retainers, men and women, and it appeared to me that these people were there to impede and tease me. No doubt my dress and appearance were in some disarray, since they seemed to gape in alarm at me, so now, growing angry, I said to old Davenport: "what is the meaning of this? is Miss Langler alive?" "Surely, sir," was his answer. "Then what is the meaning of this?" said I, "where is she?" "Miss Langler is no longer in the house, sir," he answered. "That now is a wilful falsehood, Davenport, and you know it full well," said I. "You say so, sir," he answered, "though I was never charged quite in that way till now, sir." "Well, you are charged now, Davenport," said I, "and I require to be taken instantly to Miss Langler." "The Almighty God look down upon this house!" he now bawled out, "you cannot, Mr Arthur, you cannot!" "But we shall see, then, whether I am a captive or not, Davenport!" I cried, whereat the old man shouted out: "John! stop him! he is out of his wits!" They failed, however, to hold me, for I tore clear out of the thick of them, and pelted down the length of two long, dark corridors, nor did any of them dare to come after me.

Through all that region of the house I now flew in a heat of search for Miss Langler: I glanced into her chamber, and she was not there; I looked into room after room, and did not see her; I peered into nooks, for nothing was lit anywhere, and everything brooded in a deep dusk. But on getting nearer to Langler's study I seemed to detect some sound.... I went to it. Both the doors were locked on the outside, and the sound, louder now, was going on within; so, crouching there at one of the two doors in the hush of the dark, I hearkened a long, long while to it. Something within seemed to me to be running about the study at a trot, round and round, with trot, trot, trot, in a steady way; but whether it was a living human soul I did not know, for it was strange that the lungs of a man should last so long, and not fail, and I wondered whether it was she—or he; when it drew nigh to the door I heard pantings awhile, till it went on its way, and presently panted nigh once more, and was away, round and round, in a steady way; twice or thrice, too, I seemed to be aware of a flutter somewhere, the thin utterance of a bird; and ever I spurred myself to venture in, to look and see for myself, but each time that I brisked up to try it my hairs bristled, and I shied at it.

There did, however, come a moment when I very gingerly turned the key and found myself in. It was Miss Langler whom I saw; but she, for her part, did not see, or at least heed, me at all, nor make any attempt to escape, but continued to trot round, panting towards some bourn in a heavy haste, made heavier by the large hat that she wore, and by the velvet of a violet hue that voluminously clothed her, some of which she carried over her arm that she might the handier hurry. That print of Gainsborough's "Duchess" in her large gown over the pyx, if it had stepped down from its frame to run and run, could hardly have more resembled her. The mastiff Bruno was following at her heels, and on her shoulder rode the little wren in unstable balance, this latter all mauled now and bemuddled in its own blood, while many of its feathers lay moulted about the floor-tiles: for when she had seen that her brother did not come to her, she seems to have given way to a craving to crush out the creature's life, but it had contrived to escape her hand, she had run after to catch it, and had kept on running. But why, I wondered, did she so press, with her eye musing inwardly upon herself, the enamel eye of mosaics, fixed and dull? If I dared to stand in her way to bar her, for I was far from dreaming of daring to touch her, she meekly swerved as from some rock or block, and continued to run her course. Rarely did she halt for sheer breathlessness, and lean her shoulder a little, and pant, and start afresh, followed by the machine that whined at her heels with a long lolling tongue and eyes of abashment. I, seated in the casement, hearkened and hearkened to her every step, and to the rushing of the cascade, and my eye-corners were ever aware of her as she came and went in that twilight stillness, of the flutterings, too, of the bird, and of the fading out of the sunset, for all that heaven of hues in the west I saw die down to bloodshed and dabbling, and wished that I, too, was dead.

It was not till two in the morning that I saw her removed, she protesting with a meek dignity, begging to be permitted to catch.... But of this I could hardly write more; it was with her as the hard heart of the world would have it; and God is on His throne, thinking on His glory....