s fluctuation, back to stability and
security.

A solitary thing, she took the track straight across the
wilderness, going back. The path was a narrow groove in the turf
between high, sere, tussocky grass; it was scarcely more than a
rabbit run. So she moved swiftly along, watching her footing,
going like a bird on the wind, with no thought, contained in
motion. But her heart had a small, living seed of fear, as she
went through the wash of hollow space.

Suddenly she knew there was something else. Some horses were
looming in the rain, not near yet. But they were going to be
near. She continued her path, inevitably. They were horses in
the lee of a clump of trees beyond, above her. She pursued her
way with bent head. She did not want to lift her face to them.
She did not want to know they were there. She went on in the
wild track.

She knew the heaviness on her heart. It was the weight of the
horses. But she would circumvent them. She would bear the weight
steadily, and so escape. She would go straight on, and on, and
be gone by.

Suddenly the weight deepened and her heart grew tense to bear
it. Her breathing was laboured. But this weight also she could
bear. She knew without looking that the horses were moving
nearer. What were they? She felt the thud of their heavy hoofs
on the ground. What was it that was drawing near her, what
weight oppressing her heart? She did not know, she did not
look.

Yet now her way was cut off. They were blocking her back. She
knew they had gathered on a log bridge over the sedgy dike, a
dark, heavy, powerfully heavy knot. Yet her feet went on and on.
They would burst before her. They would burst before her. Her
feet went on and on. And tense, and more tense became her nerves
and her veins, they ran hot, they ran white hot, they must fuse
and she must die.

But the horses had burst before her. In a sort of lightning
of knowledge their movement travelled through her, the quiver
and strain and thrust of their powerful flanks, as they burst
before her and drew on, beyond.

She knew they had not gone, she knew they awaited her still.
But she went on over the log bridge that their hoofs had churned
and drummed, she went on, knowing things about them. She was
aware of their breasts gripped, clenched narrow in a hold that
never relaxed, she was aware of their red nostrils flaming with
long endurance, and of their haunches, so rounded, so massive,
pressing, pressing, pressing to burst