ndeed there were to look to for
the moment, but their voices and their eyes would harden presently, when
they knew.

She told herself they must never know; and the solution to the problem
of how to keep her secret appeared upon the threshold of the unknown
road her lover had already travelled. Now, at the echo of the lowest
notes, while she lay with uneven pulses and shaking limbs, it seemed
that she was faced with the parting of the ways and must make instant
choice. Time would not wait for her and cared nothing whether she chose
life or death for her road. She struggled with red thoughts, and fever
burnt her lips and stabbed her forehead. Clement was gone. In this
supreme hour no fellow-creature could fortify her courage or direct her
tottering judgment. Once she thought of prayer and turned from it
shuddering with a passionate determination to pray no more. Then the
vision of Death shadowed her and she felt his brief sting would be
nothing beside the endless torment of living. Dangerous thoughts
developed quickly in her and grew to giants. Something clamoured to her
and cried that delay, even of hours, was impossible and must be fatal to
secrecy. A feverish yearning to get it over, and that quickly, mastered
her, and she began huddling on some clothes.

Then it was that the sudden sound of the cottage door being shut and
bolted reached her ear. Mrs. Blanchard had returned and knowing that she
would approach in a moment, Chris flung herself on the bed and pretended
to be sleeping soundly. It was not until her mother withdrew and herself
slumbered half an hour later that the distracted woman arose, dressed
herself, and silently left the house as we have said.

She heard the river calling to her, and through its murmur sounded the
voice of her loved one from afar. The moon shone clear and the valley
was full of vapoury gauze. A wild longing to see him once more in the
flesh before she followed him in the spirit gained upon Chris, and she
moved slowly up the hill to the village. Then, as she went, born of the
mists upon the meadows, and the great light and the moony gossamers
diamonded with dew, there rose his dear shape and moved with her along
the way. But his face was hidden, and he vanished at the first outposts
of the hamlet as she passed into Chagford alone. The cottage shadows
fell velvety black in a shining silence; their thatches were streaked,
their slates meshed with silver; their whitewashed walls looked
s