yes, then found himself groping and
stumbling down the steep, uneven staircase into the darkness of the
queer old wooden and hushed and lonely house. The night air cold on his
face calmed his mind. He turned and held out his hand.

'You'll come again?' Herbert was saying, with a hint of anxiety, even of
apology in his voice.

Lawford nodded, with eyes fixed blankly on the candle, and turning once
more, made his way slowly down the narrow green-bordered path upon which
the stars rained a scattered light so feeble it seemed but as a haze
that blurred the darkness. He pushed open the little white wicket
and turned his face towards the soundless, leaf-crowned hill. He had
advanced hardly a score of steps in the thick dust when almost as if
its very silence had struck upon his ear he remembered the black broken
grave with its sightless heads that lay beyond the leaves. And fear,
vast and menacing, fear such as only children know, broke like a sea of
darkness on his heart. He stopped dead--cold, helpless, trembling.
And, in the silence he heard a faint cry behind him and light footsteps
pursuing him. He turned again. In the thick close gloom beneath the
enormous elm-boughs the grey eyes shone clearly visible in the face
upturned to him. 'My brother,' she began breathlessly--'the little
French book. It was I who--who mislaid it.'

The set, stricken face listened unmoved.

'You are ill. Come back! I am afraid you are very ill.'

'It's not that, not that,' Lawford muttered; 'don't leave me; I am
alone. Don't question me,' he said strangely, looking down into her
face, clutching her hand; 'only understand that I can't, I can't go on.'
He swept a lean arm towards the unseen churchyard. 'I am afraid.'

The cold hand clasped his closer. 'Hush, don't speak! Come back; come
back. I am with you, a friend, you see; come back.'

Lawford clutched her hand as a blind man in sudden peril might clutch
the hand of a child. He saw nothing clearly; spoke almost without
understanding his words.

'Oh, but it's MUST,' he said; 'I MUST go on. You see--why, everything
depends on struggling through: the future! But if you only knew--There!'
Again his arm swept out, and the lean terrified face turned shuddering
from the dark.

'I do know; believe me, believe me! I can guess. See, I am coming with
you; we will go together. As if, as if I did not know what it is to be
afraid. Oh, believe me; no one is near; we go on; and see! it gradually,
gr