ispered encouragement of the forest.

Robinson reappeared. Anxiety had replaced the anger in the round face
which, one felt, should always have been no more than good-natured.

"Jenkins will have to help," he said.

Silas Blackburn arose unsteadily.

"I'm coming with you. You're not going to leave me here. I won't stay
here alone."

"He should come by all means," Paredes said, "in case anything
should happen--"

The old man put his hands to his ears.

"You keep quiet. I'm not going back, I tell you."

Bobby didn't want to hear any more. He went to the kitchen and called
Jenkins. He let the butler go to the hall ahead of him in order that he
might not have to witness this new greeting. But Jenkins's cry came back
to him, and when he reached the hall he saw that the man's terror had not
diminished.

They went through the court and around the house to the stable where they
found spades and shovels. Their grim purpose holding them silent, they
crossed the clearing and entered the pathway that had been freshly blazed
that day for the passage of the men in black.

The snow was quite deep. It still drifted down. It filled the woods with
a wan, unnatural radiance. Without really illuminating the sooty masses
of the trees it made the night white.

Silas Blackburn stumbled in the van with Paredes and Robinson. The doctor
and Rawlins followed. Graham was with Katherine behind them. Bobby walked
last, fighting an instinct to linger, to avoid whatever they might find
beneath the white blanket of the little, intimate burial ground.

Groom turned and spoke to Graham. Katherine waited for Bobby, and the
white night closed swiftly about them, whispering until the shuffling of
the others became inaudible.

Was she glad of this solitude? Had she sought it? Her extraordinary
request in that earlier solitude came to him, and he spoke of it while he
tried to control his emotions, while he sought to mould the next few
minutes reasonably and justly.

"Why did you tell me to make no attempt to find the guilty person?"

"Because," she answered, "you were too sure it was yourself. Why, Bobby,
did you think I was the--the woman in black? That has hurt me."

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, "but there is something I must tell
you now that may hurt you a little."

And he explained how Graham had awakened him at the head of the stairs.

"You're right," he said. "I was sure then it was myself, in spite of
Howells's movement.