there
windows were broken, and stuffed with pieces of ragged garments.
Altogether a sinister and repellent place enough.

She looked at it with heavy eyes. (Where was he now--where was he
now?--This repeating itself in the far chambers of her brain.) Her sight
seemed dimmed, not only by the mist, but by a sinking faintness which
possessed her. She did not remember how little food she had eaten during
more than twenty-four hours. Her habit was heavy with moisture, and
clung to her body; she was conscious of a hot tremor passing over her,
and saw that her hands shook as they held the bridle on which they had
lost their grip. She had never fainted in her life, and she was not
going to faint now--women did not faint in these days--but she must
reach the cottage and dismount, to rest under shelter for a short time.
No smoke was rising from the chimney, but surely someone was living in
the place, and could tell her where she was, and give her at least water
for herself and her horse. Poor beast! how wickedly she must have been
riding him, in her utter absorption in her thoughts. He was wet, not
alone with rain, but with sweat. He snorted out hot, smoking breaths.

She spoke to him, and he moved forward at her command. He was trembling
too. Not more than two hundred yards, and she turned him into the lane.
But it was wet and slippery, and strewn with stones. His trembling and
her uncertain hold on the bridle combined to produce disaster. He set
his foot upon a stone which slid beneath it, he stumbled, and she could
not help him to recover, so he fell, and only by Heaven's mercy not
upon her, with his crushing, big-boned weight, and she was able to drag
herself free of him before he began to kick, in his humiliated efforts
to rise. But he could not rise, because he was hurt--and when she,
herself, got up, she staggered, and caught at the broken gate, because
in her wrenching leap for safety she had twisted her ankle, and for a
moment was in cruel pain.

When she recovered from her shock sufficiently to be able to look at the
cottage, she saw that it was more of a ruin than it had seemed, even
at a short distance. Its door hung open on broken hinges, no smoke rose
from the chimney, because there was no one within its walls to light
a fire. It was quite empty. Everything about the place lay in dead and
utter silence. In a normal mood she would have liked the mystery of
the situation, and would have set about planning her way o