hysically hear.

She almost feared she had spoken aloud, and the thought which flashed
upon her like lightning seemed to be an answer given. He would be
convinced that she would at once try to get away from the house. If she
kept near it--somewhere--somewhere quite close, and let him search the
spinney, she might get away to its cover after he gave up the search and
came back. The jagged pain had settled in a sort of impossible anguish,
and once or twice she felt sick. But she would die in the open--and she
knew Rosalie was frightened by her absence, and was praying for her.
Prayers counted and, yet, they had all prayed yesterday.

"If I were not very strong, I should faint," she thought. "But I have
been strong all my life. That great French doctor--I have forgotten his
name--said that I had the physique to endure anything."

She said these things that she might gain steadiness and convince
herself that she was not merely living through a nightmare. Twice she
moved her foot suddenly because she found herself in a momentary respite
from pain, beginning to believe that the thing was a nightmare--that
nothing mattered--because she would wake up presently--so she need not
try to hide.

"But in a nightmare one has no pain. It is real and I must go
somewhere," she said, after the foot was moved. Where could she go?
She had not looked at the place as she rode up. She had only
half-consciously seen the spinney. Nigel was swearing at the horses.
Having got Childe Harold into the shed, there seemed to be nothing
to fasten his bridle to. And he had yet to bring his own horse in and
secure him. She must get away somewhere before the delay was over.

How dark it was growing! Thank God for that again! What was the rather
high, dark object she could trace in the dimness near the hedge? It was
sharply pointed, is if it were a narrow tent. Her heart began to beat
like a drum as she recalled something. It was the shape of the sort
of wigwam structure made of hop poles, after they were taken from the
fields. If there was space between it and the hedge--even a narrow
space--and she could crouch there? Nigel was furious because Childe
Harold was backing, plunging, and snorting dangerously. She halted
forward, shutting her teeth in her terrible pain. She could scarcely
see, and did not recognise that near the wigwam was a pile of hop poles
laid on top of each other horizontally. It was not quite as high as the
hedge whose dark backgrou