These sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took Gerald by surprise.

‘I don’t think it’s any good going away now, mother, at the last minute,’ he said, coldly.

‘You take care,’ replied his mother. ‘You mind YOURSELF—that’s your business. You take too much on yourself. You mind YOURSELF, or you’ll find yourself in Queer Street, that’s what will happen to you. You’re hysterical, always were.’

‘I’m all right, mother,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to worry about ME, I assure you.’

‘Let the dead bury their dead—don’t go and bury yourself along with them—that’s what I tell you. I know you well enough.’

He did not answer this, not knowing what to say. The mother sat bunched up in silence, her beautiful white hands, that had no rings whatsoever, clasping the pommels of her arm–chair.

‘You can’t do it,’ she said, almost bitterly. ‘You haven’t the nerve. You’re as weak as a cat, really—always were. Is this young woman staying here?’

‘No,’ said Gerald. ‘She is going home tonight.’

‘Then she’d better have the dog–cart. Does she go far?’

‘Only to Beldover.’

‘Ah!’ The elderly woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she seemed to take knowledge of her presence.

‘You are inclined to take too too much on yourself, Gerald,’ said the mother, pulling herself to her feet, with a little difficulty.

‘Will you go, mother?’ he asked, politely.

‘Yes, I’ll go up again,’ she replied. Turning to Gudrun, she bade her ‘Good–night.’ Then she went slowly to the door, as if she were unaccustomed to walking. At the door she lifted her face to him, implicitly. He kissed her.

‘Don’t come any further with me,’ she said, in her barely audible voice. ‘I don’t want you any further.’

He bade her good–night, watched her across to the stairs and mount slowly. Then he closed the door and came back to Gudrun. Gudrun rose also, to go.

‘A queer being, my mother,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ replied Gudrun.

‘She has her own thoughts.’

‘Yes,’ said Gudrun.

Then they were silent.

‘You want to go?’ he asked. ‘Half a minute, I’ll just have a horse put in—’

‘No,’ said Gudrun. ‘I want to walk.’

He had promised to walk with her down the long, lonely mile of drive, and she wanted this.

‘You might JUST as well drive,’ he said.

‘I’d MUCH RATHER walk,’ she asserted, with emphasis.

‘You would! Then I will come along with you. You know where your things are? I’ll put boots on.’

He put on a cap, and an overcoat over his evening dress. They went out into the night.

‘Let us light a cigarette,’ he said, stopping in a sheltered angle of the porch. ‘You have one too.’

“We must make our start at once,” said Jefferson Hope speaking in a low but resolute voice, like one who realizes the greatness of the peril, but has steeled his heart to meet it. “The front and back entrances are watched, but with caution we may get away through the side window and across the fields. Once on the road we are only two miles from the Ravine where the horses are waiting. By daybreak we should be halfway through the mountains.”

“What if we are stopped?” asked Ferrier.

Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front of his tunic. “If they are too many for us, we shall take two or three of them with us,” he said with a sinister smile.

The lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and from the darkened window Ferrier peered over the fields which had been his own, and which he was now about to abandon forever. He had long nerved himself to the sacrifice, however and the thought of the honour and happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret at his ruined fortunes. All looked so peaceful and happy, the rustling trees and the broad silent stretch of grainland, that it was difficult to realize that the spirit of murder lurked through it all. Yet the white face and set expression of the young hunter showed that in his approach to the house he had seen enough to satisfy him upon that head.

Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope had the scanty provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle containing a few of her more valued possessions. Opening the window very slowly and carefully, they waited until a dark cloud had somewhat obscured the night, and then one by one passed through into the little garden. With bated breath and crouching figures they stumbled across it, and gained the shelter of the hedge, which they skirted until they came to the gap which opened into the cornfield. They had just reached this point when the young man seized his two companions and dragged them down into the shadow, where they lay silent and trembling.

It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson Hope the ears of a lynx. He and his friends had hardly crouched down before the melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards of them, which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small distance. At the same moment a vague, shadowy figure emerged from the gap for which they had been making, and uttered the plaintive signal cry again, on which a second man appeared out of the obscurity.

“To-morrow at midnight,” said the first, who appeared to be in authority. “When the whippoorwill calls three times.”

“It is well,” returned the other. “Shall I tell Brother Drebber?”

“Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to seven!”

“Seven to five!” repeated the other; and the two figures flitted away in different directions. Their concluding words had evidently been some form of sign and countersign. The instant that their footsteps had died away in the distance, Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet, and helping his companions through the gap, led the way across the fields at the top of his speed, supporting and half-carrying the girl when her strength appeared to fail her.