o The Bower after hunting.

In an instant she had made up her mind. Evidently the girl was expecting
him to come by the ford. Well, she, Mrs. Chesters would ride out to meet
him and intercept him before ever he won thither to his paramour.

She turned the horse's head with never a word and rode quickly up the
burn, keeping out of sight as far as possible. A few hundred yards on
there was an outcrop of rock with alder and scrub oak intermingling. The
track seemed to run through it, by the edge of the Blackburn Lynn.
Pressing onward, Mrs. Chesters determined to ensconce herself there
behind the rocks, or in the trees, and surprise her husband as he rode
through. On he came, gaily whistling, happy as a thrush in spring
rejoicing in his mate; on he came, his horse trotting swiftly, scenting
a 'feed' at The Bower's stable.

'So I've caught you, Eric!' cried his wife, as she thrust her horse
across his path from behind an adjacent rock.

Eric's mare shied violently, missed her footing on the narrow rocky
path, staggered, then rearing upward on a vain spring forward fell
backward over like some huge stone into the black belly of the lynn.

Mrs. Chesters followed with her eyes--she felt herself turned to marble;
then she was conscious that a horse had reappeared in the black eddies
below, but no rider was on its back. Was this some horrid nightmare she
could not awake from?

Then she saw the girl on the opposite bank who cried accusingly, 'What
hae ye done wi' him, ye wicked woman?'

Mrs. Chesters was now released from her spell.

'His horse shied,' she called across the waters, 'and fell into the lynn
with him. You search that side and I this.' So saying she got down from
her horse, tied the bridle to a tree, and sought as best she could for
any trace of her husband's body on her side of the black cauldron of
waters.

'Ye hae been his deid,' Kitty had shouted above the tumult of the lynn.
Not another word did the rival mourners address to each other.

Kitty had helped to lead the fallen horse out of the channel on her side
of the burn, then smitten with a sudden thought she jumped into the
saddle and rode off down the water thinking the corpse must have been
carried down steam by the heavy current.

Mrs. Chesters vainly wandered up and down the rocky edges of the lynn,
peered into the black, circling cauldron in the centre, but seeing
nothing emerge she made her way to the farm, promised a great reward to
any one