He gave a short laugh which tried to conceal his pleasure in her
weakness.

"Aren't you ever?"

"Can't remember it."

"Not of anything?"

"No."

"How--stupid of you."

"Stupid?"

"Yes, when the world's full of things you don't understand."

"But nothing happens."

That was her own complaint, but from him the words came in the security
of content. "But tonight--" she began, shivered lightly and raised her
hand. "What's that?"

He lifted his head; the dog, sitting at his feet, had cocked his ears.
"Nothing."

"I heard something."

Hardly heeded, he put his strong fingers on her wrist and grasped it.
His voice was rich and soft. "What's the matter with you tonight?"

Unmistakably now, a sound came from the hollow; not, this time, the
raging of old Halkett, but a woman's cry for help, clear and insistent.

"It must be my father," he said, and his hand fell away from Miriam's;
but for a few seconds he stared at her as though she could tell him what
had happened. Then he went after the dog in his swift passage through
the trees, while, urged by an instinct to help and a need for George's
solid company, Miriam followed. She was soon outstripped, so that her
descent was made alone. Twigs crackled under her feet, the ranks of
trees seemed to rush past her as she went, and, with the return of
self-remembrance, she knew that this was how she had felt long ago when
she read fairy stories about forests and enchanted castles.

Yet she would have been less alarmed at the sight of a moated,
loop-holed pile than at this of Halkett's farm, a white-washed
homestead, with light beaming from a window on the ground floor, the
whole encompassed by a merely mortal possibility of strange events. Her
impulse had been to rush into the house, but she stood still, feeling
the presence of the trees like a thick curtain shutting away the outer,
upper world and, having paused, she found that she could not pursue her
course.

"I must go back," she whispered. After all, this was not her affair.

A murmur of voices came from the lighted room; the movement of a horse
in the stables was the friendliest sound she had ever heard.
Reluctantly, for she was alive with curiosity, she turned to go when a
step rang on the flagged passage of the farm and George stood in the
doorway. He beckoned and met her half way across the yard.

"He's gone," he said, and he looked dazed. "Can't believe it," he
muttered.

"Oh!" she said under her b