asked suddenly, "which is the shortest way home, without
going through Stourmouth and Marychurch? "--And, under his instructions,
turned the dog-cart down a grassy side-track, heading south-east--her back
now to the wind and inland country, her face to the larger horizon, the
larger if more hazardous freedom of the sea.

Conversation, started thus by her enquiry, flourished in friendly,
desultory fashion until, about three-quarters of an hour later, the front
gates of The Hard came in sight. By then afternoon merged itself in early
evening. Lights twinkled in the windows of the black cottages, upon the
Island, and in those of Faircloth's inn. The sky flamed orange and
crimson behind the sand-hills and Stone Horse Head. The air carried the
tang of coming frost. Upon the hard gravel of the drive, the wheels of
the dog-cart grated and the horse's hoofs rang loud.

Another Damaris came home to the Damaris who had set forth--a Damaris
rested, refreshed, invigorated, no longer a passive but an active agent.
Nevertheless, our poor maiden suffered some reaction on re-entering the
house. For, so entering, her loss again confronted her as an actual
entity. It sat throned in the lamp-lit hall. It demanded payment of
tribute before permitting her to pass. Its attitude amounted, in her too
fertile imagination, to a menace. Here, within the walls which had
witnessed not only her own major acquaintance with sorrow, but so many
events and episodes of strange and, sometimes, cruel import--super-normal
manifestations, too, of which last she feared to think--she grew undone
and weak, disposed to let tears flow, and yield once more to depression
and apathy. The house was stronger than she. But--but--only stronger,
surely, if she consented to turn craven and give way to it?--Whereupon
she consciously, of set purpose, defied the house, denied its right to
browbeat thus and enslave her. For had not she this afternoon, up on the
moorland, found a finer manner of mourning than it imposed, a manner at
once more noble and so more consonant with the temper and achievements of
her beloved dead? She believed that she had.

On the hall table lay a little flight of visiting cards. Her mind
occupied in silent battle with the house, Damaris glanced at them
absently and would have passed on. But something in the half-deciphered
printed names caught her attention. She bent lower, doubting if she could
have read aright.

"Brig.-General and Mrs. Frayling