ught, nearly three weeks ago, standing ready to mount a horse.

Then she was at Alice's bedside.

"Alice," she whispered. "Alice! Wake up.... There is someone come. You
must come with me. I do not know--" Her voice faltered: she knew that
she knew, and fear clutched her by the throat.

* * * * *

The porter was fast asleep, and did not move, as carrying a rushlight
she went past the buttery with her friend behind her saying no word. The
bolts were well oiled, and came back with scarcely a sound. Then as the
door swung slowly back a figure slipped in.

"Yes," he said, "it is I.... I think I am followed.... I have but
come--"

"Come in quickly," she said, and closed and bolted the door once more.

II

It was a horrible delight to sit, wrapped in her cloak with the hood
over her head, listening to his story in the hall, and to know that it
was to her house that he had come for safety. It was horrible to her
that he needed it--so horrible that every shred of interior peace had
left her; she was composed only in her speech, and it was a strange
delight that he had come so simply. He sat there; she could see his
outline and the pallor of his face under his hat, and his voice was
perfectly resolute and quiet. This was his tale.

"Twice this afternoon," he said, "I saw a man against the sky, opposite
my hut. It was the same man both times; he was not a shepherd or a
farmer's man. The night before, when David came, he did not speak to me;
but for the first time he put his head in at the hut-door when he
brought the food and made gestures that I could not understand. I looked
at him and shook my head, but he would say nothing, and I remembered the
bond and said nothing myself. All that he would do was to shut his eyes
and wave his hands. Then this last night he brought no food at all.

"I was uneasy at the sight of the man, too, in the afternoon. I think he
thought that I was asleep; for when I saw him for the first time I was
lying down and looking at the crag opposite. And I saw him raise himself
on his hands against the sky, as if he had been lying flat on his face
in the heather. I looked at him for a while, and then I flung my hand
out of bed suddenly, and he was gone in a whisk. I went to the door
after a time, stretching myself as if I were just awakened, and there
was no sign of him.

"About an hour before sunset I was watching again; and I saw, on a
sudden, a covey of birds r