Sophia's knees shook under her, her flesh shuddered in revolt, but she held her ground until Hawkesworth's footsteps and the murmur of his companions' jeering voices sank and died in the distance. Then, with eyes averted from the bed, she crept to the head of the stairs and descended, her skirts gathered jealously about her. She reached the kitchen. Here, in the twilight that veiled the shrouded cradle, and mercifully hid worse things, she listened awhile; peering with scared eyes into the corners, and prepared to flee at the least alarm. Satisfied at last that those she feared had really withdrawn, she passed out into the open, and under the night sky, with the fresh breeze cooling her fevered face, she drank in with ecstasy a first deep breath of relief. Oh, the pureness of that draught! Oh, the freedom and the immensity of the vault above her--after that charnel-house!

She felt sure that the men had retired the way they had come, and after a moment's hesitation she turned in the other direction, and venturing into the moonlight, took the road that Betty had taken. Now she paused to listen, now on some alarm effaced herself in the shadow cast by a tree. By-and-by, when she had left the plague-stricken house two or three hundred paces behind her, her ear caught the pleasant ripple of water. Her throat was parched, and she stopped, and traced the sound to a spring that, bubbling from a rock, filled a mossy caldron sunk in the earth, then ran to waste in a tiny rill beside the road. The hint was enough; in a second she had dragged off her outer garment, a green riding-coat, and shuddering, flung it from her; in another she had thrown off her shoes and loosened her hair. A moment she listened; then, having assured herself that she was not pursued, she plunged head and hair and hands in the fountain, let the cool water run over her fevered arms and neck, revelled in the purifying touch that promised to remove from her the loathsome infection of the house. She was a woman, she had not only death, but disfigurement to fear. One of the happy few who, under the early Georges, when even inoculation was in its infancy, had escaped the disease, she clung to her immunity with a nervous dread.

When she had done all she could, she rose to her feet and knotted up her hair. She had Betty on her mind; she must follow the girl. But midnight was some time past, the moon was declining, and her strength, sapped by the intense excitement under which she had laboured, was nearly spent. The chances that she would alight on Betty were slight, while it was certain that the girl would eventually return, or would send to the place where they had parted company. Sophia determined to remain where she was; and with the music of the rill for company, and a large stone that stood beside it for a seat, hard but dry, the worst discomfort which she had to fear was cold; and this, in her fervent gratitude for rescue from greater perils, she bore without complaint.

The solemnity of the night, as it wore slowly to morning, the depth of silence--as of death--that preceded the dawn, the stir of thanksgiving that greeted the birth of another day, these working on a nature stirred by strange experiences and now subject to a strange solitude, awoke in her thoughts deeper than ordinary. She saw in Betty's recklessness the mirror of her own; she shuddered at Hawkesworth, disclosed to her in his true colours; and considered Sir Hervey's patience with new wonder. Near neighbour to death, she viewed life as a thing detached and whole; with its end as well as its beginning. And she formed resolutions, humble at the least.

By-and-by she had to rise and be walking to keep herself warm; for she would not resume her riding-coat, and her arms were bare. A little later, however, the sun rose high enough to reach her. In the great oak that overhung the spring, the birds began to flit like moving shadows; a squirrel ran down the bark and looked at her. And in her veins a strange exhilaration began to stir. She was alive! She was safe! And then, on a sudden, she heard a footstep close at hand.

She cowered low, seized with terror. It might be Hawkesworth! The villain might have repented of his fears, have gathered courage with the light, have returned more ruthless than he had gone. Fortunately, the panic which the thought bred in her was short-lived. An asthmatic cough, followed by the noise of heavy breathing, put an end to her suspense. Next moment an elderly man wearing a rusty gown and a shabby hat decked with a rosette, came in sight. He leant on a stout stick, and carried a cloak on his arm. He had white hair and a benevolent aspect, with features that seemed formed by nature for mirth, and compelled by circumstance to soberer uses.

Aware of the oddity of her appearance--bare-armed and in her stocking feet--Sophia hung back, hesitating to address him; he was quite close to her when he lifted his eyes and saw her. The good man's surprise could scarcely have been greater had he come upon the nymph of the spring. He started, dropped his stick and cloak, and stared, his jaw fallen; it even seemed to her that a little of the colour left his face.

At last, "My child," he cried, "what are you doing here, of all places? D'you come from the house above?"

"I have been there," she answered.

He stared. "But they have the smallpox!" he exclaimed. "Did you know it?"

"I went there to avoid worse things," she cried; and fell to trembling. "Do you live here, sir?"

"Here? No; but I live in the valley below," he answered, still contemplating her with astonishment. "I am only here," he continued, with a touch of sternness which she did not understand, "because my duty leads me here. I am told--God grant it be not true--that there are three dead at the farm, and that the living are fled."

"It is true," she answered briefly. And against the verdure, framed in the beauty of this morning world, with its freshness, its dancing sunlight, and its flitting birds, she saw the death-room, the foetid mist about the smoking guttering candles, the sheeted form. She shuddered.

"You are sure?" he said.

"I have seen them," she answered.

"Then I need go no farther now," he replied in a tone of relief. "I can do no good. I must return and get help to bury them. It will be no easy task; my parishioners are stricken with panic, they think only of their wives and families. Even in my own household--but I am forgetting, child. You are a stranger here? And, Lord bless me, what has become of your gown?"

She pointed to the place where it lay a little apart, in a heap on the ground. "I've taken it off," she explained, colouring slightly. "I fear it carries the infection. I was attacked in my carriage on the other side of the ford. And robbed. And to avoid worse things I took refuge in the house above."

"Lord save us!" he cried, lifting his hands in astonishment. "I never heard of such a thing! Never! We have had no such doings in these parts these twenty years!"

"Perhaps you could lend me your cloak, sir?" she said. "Until I can get something."

He handed it to her. "To be sure, to be sure," he answered. And then, "In your carriage?" he continued. "Dear, dear, and had you any one with you, ma'am?"

"My friend escaped," she explained, "with--with some jewels I had. The postboys had been sent ahead to Lewes to get fresh horses. Watkyns, one of the servants, had returned towards Fletching, to see if he could get help in that quarter. My woman was so frightened that she was useless, and the two grooms had been made drunk on the road, and were useless also!"

She did not notice, that with each item in her catalogue, the old clergyman's eyes grew wider and wider; nor that towards the end surprise began to give place to incredulity. This talk of horses, and grooms, and servants, and maids, and postboys in the mouth of a girl found hatless and shoeless by the roadside--a creature with tumbled hair, without a gown, and in petticoats soaked with water, and stained with dust and dirt, over-stepped the bounds of reason. Unfortunately, a little before this a young woman had appeared in a town not far off, in the guise of a countess; and with all the apparatus of the rank had taken in no less worshipful a body than the mayor and corporation of the place, who in the issue had been left to bewail their credulity. The tale was rife along the country-side; the old clergyman knew it, and being by nature a simple soul--as his wife often told him--had the cunning of simplicity. He bade himself be cautious--be cautious; and as he listened bethought him of a test. "Your carriage should be there, then?" he said. "Where you left it, ma'am?"

"I have not dared to return and see," she answered. "We might do so now, if you will be kind enough to accompany me."

"To be sure, to be sure. Let us go, child."

But when they had crossed the ridge--keeping as far as they could from the door of the plague-stricken house--he was no whit surprised to find no carriage, no servants, no maid. From the brow of the hill they could trace with their eyes the desolate valley and the road by which she had come; but nowhere on the road, or beside it, was any sign of life. Sophia had been so much shaken by the events of the night that she had forgotten the possibility of rescue at the hands of her own people. Now that the notion was suggested to her, she found the absence of the carriage, of Watkyns, of the grooms, inexplicable. And she said so; but the very expression of her astonishment, following abruptly on his suggestion that the carriage should be there, did but deepen the good parson's doubts. She had spun her tale, he thought, without providing for this point, and now sought to cover the blot by exclamations of surprise.

He had not the heart, however, good honest soul as he was, to unmask her; on the contrary, he suffered as great embarrassment as if the deceit had been his own. He found himself constrained to ask in what way he could help her; and when she suggested that she should rest at his house, he assented. But with little spirit.

"If it be not too far?" she said; struck by his tone, and with a thought also for her unshod feet.

"It's--it's about a mile," he answered.

"Well, I must walk it."

"You don't think--I could send," he suggested weakly, "and--and make inquiries--for your people, ma'am?"

"If you please, when I am there," she said; and that left him no resource but to start with her. But as they went, amid all the care she was forced to give to her steps, she noticed that he regarded her oddly; that he looked askance at her when he thought her eyes elsewhere, and looked away guiltily when she caught him in the act.

They plodded some half-mile, then turned to the right, and a trifle farther came in sight of a little hamlet that nestled among chestnut trees in a dimple of the hill-face. As they approached this, his uneasiness became more marked; nor was Sophia left in ignorance of its cause. The first house to which they came was a neat thatched cottage beside the church. A low wicket-gate gave access to the garden, and over this appeared for a moment an angry woman's face, turned in the direction whence they came. It was gone as soon as seen; but Sophia, from a faltered word which dropped from her companion, learned to whom it belonged; and when he tried the wicket-gate she was not surprised to see it was fastened. He tried it nervously, his face grown red; then he raised his voice. "My love," he cried, "I have come back. I think you did not see us. Will you please to open the gate?"

An ominous silence was the only answer. He tried the gate a second time, in a shamefaced way. "My dear," he cried aloud, a quaver in his patient tone, "I have come back."

"And more shame to you," a shrill voice answered, the speaker remaining unseen. "Do you hear me, Michieson? More shame to you, you unnatural father! Didn't you hear me say I would not have you going to that place? And didn't I tell you if you went you would not come here again! You thought yourself mighty clever, I'll be bound," the termagant continued, "to go off while I was asleep, my man! But now you'll sleep in the garden house, for in here you don't come! Who's that with you?"

"A--a young lady in trouble," he stammered.

"Where did you find her?"

"On the road, my love! In great trouble."

"Then on the road you may leave her," the shrew retorted. "No, my man, you don't come over me that way. You brought the hussy from that house. Tell me she's not been in it, if you dare? And you'd bring her in among your innocent, lawful children, would you, and give 'em their deaths! Fie," with rising indignation, "you silly old fool! If you weren't a natural, in place of such rubbish, you'd have been over to Sir Hervey's and complimented madam this fine morning, and been 'pointed chaplain. But 'tis like you. Instead of providing for your wife and children, as a man should, you're trying to give 'em their deaths, among a lot of dead people that'll never find you in a bit of bread to put in their bellies, or a bit of stuff to put on their backs! I tell you, Michieson, I've no patience with you."

"But, my dear----"

"Now send her packing. Do you hear me, Michieson?"

He was going to remonstrate, but Sophia intervened. Spent with fatigue, her feet sore and blistered, she felt that she could not go a yard further. Moreover, to eyes dazed by the horrors of the night, the thatched house among the rose-briars, with its hum of bees and scent of woodbine and honey-suckle, seemed a haven of peace. She raised her voice. "Mrs. Michieson," she said, "your husband need not go to Sir Hervey's. I am Lady Coke."

With a cry of amazement a thin, red-faced woman, scantily dressed in an old soiled wrapper that had known a richer wearer--for Mrs. Michieson had been a lady's maid--pushed through the bushes. She stared a moment with all her eyes; then she burst into a rude laugh. "You mean her woman, I should think," she said. "Why, you saucy piece, you must think us fine simpletons to try for to come over us with that story. Lady Coke in her stockinged feet, indeed!"

"I have been robbed," Sophia faltered, trying not to break down. "You are a woman. Surely you have some pity for another woman in trouble?"

"Aye, you are like enough to have been in trouble! That I can see!" the parson's lady answered with a sneer. "But I'll trouble you not to call me a woman!" she continued, tossing her head. "Woman, indeed! A pretty piece you are to call names, trapesing the country like a guy, and--why, whose cloak have you there? Michieson!" in a voice like vinegar. "What does this mean?"

"My dear," he said humbly--Sophia, on the verge of tears, could say no more lest she should break down, "the--the lady was robbed on the road. She was travelling in her carriage----"

"In her carriage?"

"And her servants ran away--as I understand," he explained, rubbing his hands, and smiling in a sickly way, "and the postboys did not return, and--and her woman----"

"Her woman!"

"Well, yes, my dear, so she tells me, was so frightened she stayed with the carriage. And her friend, a--another lady, escaped in the dark with some jewels--and----"

"Michieson!" madam cried, in her most awful voice, "did you believe this--this cock and bull story that you dare to repeat to me?"

He glanced from one to the other. "Well, my dear," he answered in confusion, "I--at least, the lady told me----"

"Did you believe it? Yes or no! Did you believe it?"

"Well, I----"

"Did you go to look for the carriage?"

"Yes, my dear, I did."

"And did you find it?"

"Well, no," the clergyman confessed. "I did not."

"Nor the servants?"

"No, but----"

She did not let him explain. "Now," she cried, with shrill triumph, "you see what a fool you are! And where you'd be if it were not for me. Did she say a word about being Lady Coke until she heard her name from me? Eh? Answer me that, did she?"

Very miserable, he glanced at Sophia. "Well, no, my dear, I don't think she did!" he admitted.

"So I thought!" madam cried. And then with a cruel gesture, "off with it, you baggage! Off with it!" she continued. "Do you think I don't know that the moment my back is turned you'll be gone, and a good cloak with you! No, off with it, my ragged madam, and thank your stars I don't send you to the stocks!"

But her husband plucked up spirit at that.

"No," he said firmly. "No, she shall keep the cloak till she can get a covering. For shame, wife, for shame," he continued with a smack of dignity. "Do you never think that a daughter of yours may some day stand in her shoes?"

"You fool, she has got none!" his wife snarled. "And you'll give her that cloak, at your peril."

"She shall keep it, till she gets a covering," he answered.

"Then she'll keep it somewhere else, not here!" the termagant answered in a fury. "Do you call yourself a parson and go trapesing the country with a slut like that! And your lawful wife left at home?"

Sophia, white with exhaustion, could scarcely keep her feet, but at that she plucked up spirit. "The cloak I shall keep, for it is your husband's," she said. "For yourself, ma'am, you will bitterly repent before the day is out that you have treated me in this way."

"Hoity-toity! you'd threaten me, would you?" the other cried viciously. "Here, Tom, Bill! Ha' you no stones. Here's a besom ill-speaking your mother. Ah, I thought you'd be going, ma'am," she continued, leaning over the gate, with a grin of satisfaction. "It'll be in the stocks you'll sit before the day is out, I'm thinking."

But Sophia was out of hearing; rage and indignation gave her strength. But not for long. The reception with which she had met, in a place where, of all places, peace and charity and a seat for the wretched should have been found, broke down the last remains of endurance. As soon as the turn in the road hid her from the other woman's eyes, she sank on a bank, unable to go farther. She must eat and drink and rest, or she must die.

Fortunately, the poor vicar, worthy of a better mate, had not quite abandoned her cause. After standing a moment divided between indignation and fear, he allowed the more generous impulse to have way; he followed and found her. Shocked to read exhaustion plainly written on her face, horrified by the thought that she might die at his door, that door which day and night should have been open to the distressed, he half led and half carried her to the little garden house to which his wife had exiled him; and which by good fortune stood in an orchard, beyond, but close to the curtilage of the house. Here he left her a moment, and procuring the drudge of a servant to hand him a little bread and milk over the fence, he fed her with his own hands, and waited patiently beside her until the colour returned to her face.

Relieved by the sight, and satisfied that she was no longer in danger, he began to be troubled; glancing furtively at her and away again, and often moving to the door of the shed, which looked out on a pleasant plot of grass dappled with sunlight, and overhung by drooping boughs on which the late blossom lingered. Finally, seeing her remain languid and spiritless, he blurted out what was in his mind. "I daren't keep you here," he muttered, with a flush of shame. "If my wife discovers you, she may do you a mischief. And the fear of the smallpox is such, they'd stone you out of the parish if they knew you had been at Beamond's--God forgive them!"

Sophia looked at him in astonishment. "But I have told you who I am," she said. "I am Lady Coke. Surely you believe me."

"Child!" he said in a tone of gentle reproof. "Let be. You don't know what you say. There's not an acre in this parish is not Sir Hervey's, nor a house, nor a barn. Is it likely his honour's lady would be wandering shoeless in the road?"

She laughed hysterically. Tragedy and comedy were strangely mingled this morning. "Yet it is so," she said. "It is so."

He shook his head in reproof, but did not answer.

"You don't believe me?" she cried. "How far is it to Coke Hall?"

"About three miles," he answered unwillingly.

"Then the doubt is solved. Go thither! Go thither at once!" she continued, the power to think returning, and with it the remembrance of Lady Betty's danger. "At once!" she repeated, rising in her impatience, while a flood of colour swept over her face. "You must see Sir Hervey, and tell him that Lady Coke is here, and that Lady Betty Cochrane is missing; that we have been robbed, and he must instantly, instantly before he comes here, make search for her."

The old parson stared. "For whom?" he stammered.

"For Lady Betty Cochrane, who was with me."

He continued to stare; with the beginnings of doubt in his eyes. "Child," he said, "are you sure you are not bubbling me? 'Twill be a poor victory over a simple old man."

"I am not! I am not!" she cried. And suddenly bethinking her of the pocket that commonly hung between the gown and petticoat, she felt for it. She had placed her rings as well as her purse in it. Alas, it was gone! The strings had yielded to rough usage.

None the less, the action went some way with him. He saw her countenance fall, he read the disappointment it expressed, he told himself that if she acted, she was the best actress in the world. "Enough," he said, almost persuaded of the truth of her story. "I will go, ma'am. If 'tis a cheat, I forgive you beforehand. And if it is the cloak you want, take it honestly. I give it you."

But she looked at him so wrathfully at that, that he said no more, but went. He took up his stick, and as he passed out of sight among the trees he waved his hand in token of forgiveness--if after all she was fooling him.