--he acts as if there were nobody in the carriage!"

They looked fearfully at each other.

"He will stop surely--somewhere," said the other, but her heart felt
chilled. She could not think--she dared not.

They trotted swiftly on; her companion's eyes were fixed ahead of her,
her lips moved.

"Hail Mary!" she muttered, and then, "now and at the hour of our death!"

"Don't say that, don't!" she begged the woman, but still the mutterings
went on. The door of the carriage swung open; the horses dropped to a
walk. All around were trees and grass; great rocks lined the driveway.

"I could slip behind the bushes and my gown would not be noticed," she
thought feverishly, "for I cannot bear to hear her," and as the carriage
almost halted she swung herself easily down from the low step.

"Now and at the hour of our death!" she heard as the carriage rolled on,
and shuddered when the coachman slammed the door upon that pale, crazed
creature.

Behind the bushes she was well screened, and the few people that drove
and walked through the wild, beautiful woodland never looked in her
direction. Once a couple, intertwined and deep in each other's eyes,
almost ran against her, but though she drew away, startled and
apologizing, they walked on with no reply to her excuses.

Her heart sank strangely.

"I wish they had spoken to me," she whispered to herself. "I wish I
could think better--I know there is something wrong. The next person I
meet I will ask----"

But she walked steadily away from the great driveway, deeper and deeper
into the wood.

"In a moment I will stop and think this out--in a moment," she murmured,
but she did not stop; she ran like a hunted animal, farther and farther.

The wood was utterly quiet. Sometimes a little furry beast slipped
across the narrow path she ran along, sometimes a large bird flapped
heavily into the air ahead of her; but no person walked or called.

Soon a great fatigue seized her, and hunger. She moved languidly; her
legs seemed to walk of themselves.

"I must eat--I must rest," she moaned, "but why did they not speak to
me?"

At last she realized that she could drag herself no farther, that she
was alone and lost, fearful and worn out, in a dense wood.

"I will get to that little path," she said, trembling, "and there I
will drop, and if I must think, I must."

She staggered up the little path, and it lead to a tiny hut, the colour
of the four great trees that stood about it.