d her steps slowly and sadly up the avenue. As she glanced back
she saw a gaunt, hard-featured woman trudging up the lane with a tin can
in her hand. Lonely and forlorn, but not yet quite destitute of hope,
she turned to the right among the trees, and pushed her way through
bushes and brambles to the boundary of the Priory grounds. It was a
lofty wall, at least nine feet in height, with a coping which bristled
with jagged pieces of glass. Kate walked along the base Of it, her fair
skin all torn and bleeding with scratches from the briars, until she
satisfied herself that there was no break in it. There was one small
wooden door on the side which was skirted by the railway line, but it
was locked and impassable. The only opening through which a human being
could pass was that which was guarded in the manner she had seen. The
sickening conviction took possession of her mind that without wings it
was an utter impossibility either to get away or to give the least
information to any one in the world as to where she was or what might
befall her.

When she came back to the house, tired and dishevelled after her journey
of exploration, Girdlestone was standing by the door to receive her with
a sardonic smile upon his thin lips. "How do you like the grounds,
then?" he asked, with, the nearest approach to hilarity which she had
ever heard from him. "And the ornamental fencing? and the lodge-keeper?
How did you like them all?"

Kate tried for a moment to make some brave retort, but it was a useless
attempt. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled, and, with a cry of grief
and despair which might have moved a wild beast, she fled to her room,
and, throwing herself upon her bed, burst into such scalding bitter
tears as few women are ever called upon to shed.

CHAPTER XXXV.

A TALK ON THE LAWN.

That same evening Rebecca came down from London. Her presence was a
comfort to Kate, for though she had never liked or trusted the girl, yet
the mere fact of having some one of her own age near her, gave her a
sense of security and of companionship. Her room, too, had been altered
for the better, and the maid was given the one next door, so that by
knocking on the wall she could always communicate with her. This was an
unspeakable consolation, for at night the old house was so full of the
sudden crackings of warped timber and the scampering of rats that entire
loneliness was unendurable.

Apart from these uncanny sounds t