Owston, my lady, and lost the fox on yon side of our bottom spinney. He must have been about done, by the way scent failed, and they couldn't pick him up again for the gentlemen crowding forrard. No, my lady, there was two sticks crossed in the earth—and the drainpipe clogged. But we found 'em one that'll take them a sight farther than some of them care to go. A real fine fox that was!" He wound up with real pride.

"And who was that on the bay?" asked Lady Henrietta. "He took the fence well, Macdonald."

"That was his Lordship," allowed Macdonald, but grudgingly. "Ah, my lady, I seen Mr. Barnaby take that very jump that day they killed their fox in the park. Clean and fine he went up, and lighted; he never smashed no top rail!"

"I know—I know," said Lady Henrietta. "The day he put out his shoulder."

"That was a rabbit hole," said Macdonald jealously. "Ah, my lady, his Lordship will never go like him!"

Dismissing Rackham with the scorn of an old servant staunch to his master, he shook his head mournfully and retreated. Lady Henrietta had turned abruptly from her cross-examination, and held out her hands to the fire.

The incident, slight as it was, and brief, coloured all their evening. Afterwards, Lady Henrietta returned to the subject, amusing herself with surmises. Had Susan noticed a man with a grizzled moustache and a furtive eye?—and another who had a trick of jerking out his elbow?—and one who rode like a jack-in-the-box, starting up continually in his stirrups? And had she seen a woman in brown, who usually backed in under the hedge at a check, talking secrets with a lank man, her shadow,—and all unwitting that there were two sides to hedges, and that voices filtered through? Insensibly, she branched into reminiscence, telling caustic histories of these Leicestershire unworthies, who were all unknown to Susan; and the girl hardly listened, sitting with her cheek on her hand and a dreaming brow.

The short interlude had impressed her. But in imagination she saw, not the splendid figure that had crashed over the hedge down yonder,—but another, one silently haunting the dim pastures where he had ridden once, sweeping out of the dusk, and passing into the dusk again. The swift scene came back to her, with its wild rush of life, hounds, and horsemen,—only, instead of his cousin, she pictured Barnaby, to whose memory she had dedicated herself.

It was wearing late. Soon Lady Henrietta would interrupt herself, breaking off with a remorseful brusqueness, and order her off to bed. How quiet it was in the library, that vast, comfortable room! How safe she felt, and how sleepy, only dreaming, not thinking of anything.

The white fox-terrier with the bitten ear had stolen down to her and lay on her skirt. There was a kind of fellowship between her and the dog. When it jumped up all at once with a shiver she stroked its back softly, wondering why it alone was excited by the wind whistling outside the house. And it looked up in her face and scuttled like a thing possessed down the room.

"What's the matter with Kit?" said Lady Henrietta, pausing.—"I daresay she heard Macdonald shutting up in the hall."—And she went on talking.

Far down the room the heavy curtain swung hastily, and fell back. It was Susan who, without warning, lifted her eyes and saw somebody standing there.

He had walked right in out of the wind and rain, had flung off his dripping cap, but had not waited to unbutton his greatcoat; and he looked as he had looked in his picture, but no ghost—real,—with dreadful blue eyes, and a smiling mouth.

The girl started to her feet. One wild moment she stared at him. Her own cry sounded strange in her ears, very far off ... and then the world went round.

*****

Slowly she drifted back into consciousness, and she was lying on her bed, surrounded by fluttered women, whose amazed whispering reached her like the dim clamour in a dream.

"Poor thing; poor thing—it was too much for her." "It was wicked of Mr. Barnaby to startle her like that. But how like him——!"

"Lord, Lord! his face as she lay on the floor!—and his mother rating him as if he'd never been dead an hour——!"

"'You've killed her!' said she. 'You've killed her!'"

"Like as not she'll go out of her mind, poor lamb!"

The quavering excitement hushed suddenly as she stirred.

"Hold your noise, you!" the old housekeeper adjured the others, pushing them on one side, and patting her anxiously, promising something in a voice that shook, tremulous and coaxing,—as one might dangle the moon to quiet a frantic child.

Up the long corridor came a man's step, and the pattering of a dog. The housekeeper jumped, and ran from the bedside, and the maids clung hysterically together, looking with a scared eagerness at the door. A superstitious terror was still painted on their faces.

Barnaby was not dead. The whole dreadful comedy was scarcely clear to the girl, so dizzy was she with this one miracle, the thing that was impossible, and was true. Shame had not yet burnt up wonder. She lay motionless, with her hands on her heart, listening to his step, and waiting for the sound of a voice that she had never heard.

"How is she?"

Oh strange, kind voice, asking that! Susan caught her breath, remembering who she was not.

The housekeeper, running out, had closed the door nervously, and was posted with her back against it, half in a rapture, and half reproachful.

"Oh, Mr. Barnaby—! Oh, my gracious!"

Collecting herself, she went on in a trembling hurry.

"She's come round at last; she's come to herself;—but the doctor says we must keep her quiet. You can't come in, sir! It might do harm. He said so before he went to my lady.... I daren't let you in, Mr. Barnaby.... Please! ... I've told her you'll come to her in the morning ... and I was to give you her love."

The girl started up, horror-stricken, and fell back on the bed, covering her face. Would nothing silence that foolish tongue, inspired by its ill-judged haste to pacify the presumed impatience of the man who had done the mischief? Through the guarded door, through her shut eyes, Susan had a scorching vision of Barnaby, the stranger, listening to that brazen message. And between her convulsive fingers she heard the old servant babbling on.... No, after that, she could not bear to look him in the face!

Panic seized her. It grew upon her as she lay quiescent, enduring the ministrations of sympathizers who would have scorned to touch her if they had known. Barnaby had not spoken. He had not said to them, "She is an impostor." He was letting them pity her, handle her gently ... till to-morrow.

They had given her something to make her sleep, but the draught was impotent; instead of soothing, it was exciting a strange confusion in her head. She got out of bed at last, hearing nothing but somewhere in her room the heavy breathing of a dozing watcher. Slowly at first, and then quicker, as the impulse took hold of her, she began struggling into her clothes. She must go, she must go; she could not stay in this house.

Driven by her panic, that could not think, could not reason, she set her desperate foot on the stair.

The lights were not out in the hall below; they shimmered faintly as she passed like a shadow towards the door. If someone should come—! Feverishly she tried to undo the bar; the latch was very heavy. Her heart beat so loud that she was deaf to all other noises.

She did not know that she was not alone till a hand was laid on her shoulder.

She turned round, shaking from head to foot, leaning against the door.

"Oh, let me go!" she cried.

He looked at her gravely.

"I'm afraid we're neither of us real," he said. "Let's try not to scare each other.... They tell me that you're my widow."

She turned her face from him.

"Don't look at me. Oh, don't look at me! Let me go," she repeated wildly.