l game, turning abruptly down lanes and rides, out across the high
road, and down again another turn, with the breathing and creaking and
jingling of others behind her? Years ago the two had played
Follow-my-leader on horseback in the woods above Great Keynes. She
remembered this now; and a flood of memories poured across her mind and
diluted the bitterness of this shocking reality. Dear God, what a game!

Anthony steered with skill and decision. He had been studying the map
with great attention, and even now carried it loose in his hand and
glanced at it from time to time. Above all else he wished to avoid
passing a house, for fear that the searchers might afterwards inquire at
it; and he succeeded perfectly in this, though once or twice he was
obliged to retrace his steps. There was little danger, he knew now, of
the noise of the horses' feet being any guide to those who were
searching, for the high table-land on which they rode was a labyrinth of
lanes and rides, and the trees too served to echo and confuse the noise
they could not altogether avoid making. Twice they passed travellers, one
a farmer on an old grey horse, who stared at this strange hurrying party;
and once a pedlar, laden with his pack, who trudged past, head down.

Isabel's horse was beginning to strain and pant, and she herself to grow
giddy with heat and weariness, when she saw through the trees an old
farmhouse with latticed windows and a great external chimney, standing in
a square of cultivated ground; and in a moment more the path they were
following turned a corner, and the party drew up at the back of the
house.

At the noise of the horses' footsteps a door at the back had opened, and
a woman's face looked out and drew back again; and presently from the
front Mrs. Kirke came quickly round. She was tall and slender and
middle-aged, with a somewhat anxious face; but a look of great relief
came over it as she saw Anthony.

"Thank God you are come," she said; "I feared something had happened."

Anthony explained the circumstances in a few words.

"I will ride on gladly, madam, if you think right; but I will ask you in
any case to take my sister in."

"Why, how can you say that?" she said; "I am a Catholic. Come in, father.
But I fear there is but poor accommodation for the servants."

"And the horses?" asked Anthony.

"The barn at the back is got ready for them," she said; "perhaps it would
be well to take them there at once." She called