had no more heart. She knew she dare
not draw near. That concentrated, knitted flank of the
horse-group had conquered. It stirred uneasily, awaiting her,
knowing its triumph. It stirred uneasily, with the uneasiness of
awaited triumph. Her heart was gone, her limbs were dissolved,
she was dissolved like water. All the hardness and looming power
was in the massive body of the horse-group.

Her feet faltered, she came to a standstill. It was the
crisis. The horses stirred their flanks uneasily. She looked
away, failing. On her left, two hundred yards down the slope,
the thick hedge ran parallel. At one point there was an oak
tree. She might climb into the boughs of that oak tree, and so
round and drop on the other side of the hedge.

Shuddering, with limbs like water, dreading every moment to
fall, she began to work her way as if making a wide detour round
the horse-mass. The horses stirred their flanks in a knot
against her. She trembled forward as if in a trance.

Then suddenly, in a flame of agony, she darted, seized the
rugged knots of the oak tree and began to climb. Her body was
weak but her hands were as hard as steel. She knew she was
strong. She struggled in a great effort till she hung on the
bough. She knew the horses were aware. She gained her foot-hold
on the bough. The horses were loosening their knot, stirring,
trying to realize. She was working her way round to the other
side of the tree. As they started to canter towards her, she
fell in a heap on the other side of the hedge.

For some moments she could not move. Then she saw through the
rabbit-cleared bottom of the hedge the great, working hoofs of
the horses as they cantered near. She could not bear it. She
rose and walked swiftly, diagonally across the field. The horses
galloped along the other side of the hedge to the corner, where
they were held up. She could feel them there in their huddled
group all the while she hastened across the bare field. They
were almost pathetic, now. Her will alone carried her, till,
trembling, she climbed the fence under a leaning thorn tree that
overhung the grass by the high-road. The use went from her, she
sat on the fence leaning back against the trunk of the thorn
tree, motionless.

As she sat there, spent, time and the flux of change passed
away from her, she lay as if unconscious upon the bed of the
stream, like a stone, unconscious, unchanging, unchangeable,
whilst everything rolled by in transience, leav