ut of her
difficulty. But now her mind made no effort, because normal interest
in things had fallen away from her. She might be twenty miles from
Stornham, but the possible fact did not, at the moment, seem to concern
her. (Where is he now--where is he now?) Childe Harold was trying to
rise, despite his hurt, and his evident determination touched her. He
was too proud to lie in the mire. She limped to him, and tried to steady
him by his bridle. He was not badly injured, though plainly in pain.

"Poor boy, it was my fault," she said to him as he at last struggled to
his feet. "I did not know I was doing it. Poor boy!"

He turned a velvet dark eye upon her, and nosed her forgivingly with
a warm velvet muzzle, but it was plain that, for the time, he was done
for. They both moved haltingly to the broken gate, and Betty fastened
him to a thorn tree near it, where he stood on three feet, his fine head
drooping.

She pushed the gate open, and went into the house through the door which
hung on its hinges. Once inside, she stood still and looked about her.
If there was silence and desolateness outside, there was within the
deserted place a stillness like the unresponse of death. It had been
long since anyone had lived in the cottage, but tramps or gipsies had
at times passed through it. Dead, blackened embers lay on the hearth, a
bundle of dried grass which had been slept on was piled in the corner,
an empty nail keg and a wooden box had been drawn before the big chimney
place for some wanderer to sit on when the black embers had been hot and
red.

Betty gave one glance around her and sat down upon the box standing on
the bare hearth, her head sinking forward, her hands falling clasped
between her knees, her eyes on the brick floor.

"Where is he now?" broke from her in a loud whisper, whose sound was
mechanical and hollow. "Where is he now?"

And she sat there without moving, while the grey mist from the marshes
crept close about the door and through it and stole about her feet.

So she sat long--long--in a heavy, far-off dream.

Along the road a man was riding with a lowering, fretted face. He had
come across country on horseback, because to travel by train meant
wearisome stops and changes and endlessly slow journeying, annoying
beyond endurance to those who have not patience to spare. His ride would
have been pleasant enough but for the slow mist-like rain. Also he had
taken a wrong turning, because he did not know