ng under the hedge
about fifty yards up the road, thinking things over."

He opened the door then abruptly, and she held her breath and became
still and tense with apprehension. But he only pulled up the window,
closed the door again with a sharp click, and left her. When she dared
to breathe again the car was in motion.

She took no interest in her surroundings. Her destination had become a
matter of such secondary importance that she gave it no consideration
whatever. What mattered, all that mattered, was that she was now in the
hands and absolutely at the mercy of the man whom she feared as she
feared no one else on earth, the man with whom in her mad coquetry she
had dared to trifle.

The car was stopping. It came to a standstill almost imperceptibly, and
Caryl stepped into the road. Tensely she watched him; but he did not so
much as glance her way. He turned aside to a little gate in a high hedge
of laurel, and passed within, leaving her alone in the night.

Soon she heard his deliberate footfalls returning. In a moment he had
reached the door, his hand was upon it. She turned stiffly towards him
as it opened.

He spoke at once in his calm, unmoved voice:

"A very old friend of mine lives here. She will put you up for the
night and see to your comfort. Will you get out?"

Mutely she did so, feeling curiously weak and unstrung. He put his arm
around her, and led her into the dim cottage garden.

They went up a tiled path to an open door from which the light of a
single candle gleamed fitfully in the draught. She stumbled at the
doorstep, but he held her up. He was almost carrying her.

As they entered, an old woman, bent and indescribably wrinkled, rose
from her knees before a deep old-fashioned fireplace on the other side
of the little kitchen, and came to meet them. She had evidently just
coaxed a dying fire back to life.

"Ah, poor dear," she said at sight of the girl's exhausted face. "She
looks more dead than alive. Bring her to the fire, Master Vivian. I'll
soon have some hot milk for the poor lamb."

Caryl led her to an arm-chair that stood on one side of the blaze, and
made her sit down. Then, stooping, he took one of her nerveless hands
and held it closely in his own.

He did not speak to her, and she was relieved by his forbearance. As the
warmth of his grasp gradually communicated itself to her numbed fingers,
she felt her racing pulses grow steadier; but she was glad when he laid
her hand