past broad rivers and dark woods. Yet never once did the
silent woman raise her eyes, never once did she look from the windows at
the glowing landscape that lay on either side. Once, and once only, she
caught a glimpse of the golden sunlight, and she turned away with a
faint, sick, shuddering sigh.

Her fellow-passengers looked wonderingly at her. She never moved; her
hands were tightly clasped, as one whose thoughts were all despairing:
Once a lady addressed her, but she never heard the words. Silent, mute,
and motionless, she might have been a marble statute, only that every
now and then a quick, faint shiver came over her.

On through the fair, English counties, and the heat of the sun grew
less. The birds came from their shelter in the leafy trees and began to
sing; the flowers yielded their loveliest perfumes, and the sweet summer
wind that blew in at the carriage windows was like the breath of
Paradise.

Still she had neither spoken nor moved. Then the train stopped, and the
sudden cessation from all sound made her start up suddenly, as though
roused from painful dreams.

"Have we--have we passed Crewe?" she asked.

And then her fellow-passengers looked wonderingly at her, for the voice
was like no other sound--no human sound; it was a faint gasp, as of one
who had escaped a deadly peril, and was still faint with the remembrance
of it.

"No," replied a gentleman; "we have not reached Crewe yet. They are
stopping for water, I should imagine. This is supposed to be one of the
most out-of-the-way villages in England. It is called Redcliffe."

She gave one look through the open windows. There, behind the woods, a
little village lay stretched and half hidden by the thick green foliage.

"I want to get out here," she said, in the same faint voice.

Her fellow-travelers looked at each other, and their glances said
plainly, "There is something strange about her; let her go." A gentleman
called the guard, and the woman, whose face was so carefully veiled, put
something in his hand that shone like gold.

"Let me get out here," she said, and without a word he unlocked the
door, and she left the carriage. Those who remained behind breathed more
freely after she had gone. That strange, mute presence had had a
depressing effect on them all.

She looked neither to the right nor to the left, but made her way
quickly to the green fields, where the golden silence of summer reigned.
She walked there with hasty steps, lo