ANDREW argued with himself as he walked homeward. No one could suspect him. No one? Wait! There was one. What about Thomas? Thomas was not a man to be trusted. At any moment he might find it to his own interests to tell what he knew. Andrew began to be afraid. “I was a fool,” he said, “after all. I must escape, escape at once; I will not go home.”

He was not very clear in what direction to go. His original home was near Carlisle, but for that reason he avoided it. He would go south, he would make his way over the hills to Brough and Kirkby Stephen and then strike for Lancaster.

He had plenty of money and was able to secure horses at Brough so that he actually got as far as Lancaster the next night. Here he thought he might escape notice and right thankful was he to get to his bed.

But he could not sleep. He was overtired and turned restlessly from side to side, now drawing up his feet, now stretching them out. As he lay there the thought of the black, glistening, silent moat returned to him. “Meddlesome brat,” he muttered to himself, “you got what you deserved.” The thought, however, would not depart but kept returning to him, and his imagination would dwell upon something dark floating on the surface of the water. “The fiends of hell get hold of112 thee,” he uttered aloud in a hoarse whisper, sitting up in bed.

As he sat up he heard a noise as of some one at his door. “Could any one be listening?” He rose softly and listened himself on the inner side. No, there was surely nothing. He cautiously opened the door and peered out into the shadowy passage. As he did so the door was drawn sharply from his hand and closed. For a moment he dared not move, but stood trembling, waiting, expectant. He heard a distant horse on the cobble stones, then absolute silence save the low wailing whistle of a gust of wind. It seemed to bring back Aline’s little white terrified face as she tried to cry out when he held her in his grip with his hand over her mouth. The cold sweat broke out on his forehead and then suddenly the tension relaxed,—“The wind, the wind; it was the wind that had blown the door out of his hand.”

He shivered and got back into bed. Again he heard horses’ hoofs; this time they came nearer and nearer, they were surely coming to the inn. Yes, they had stood still at the door. He leaped up and frantically slipped on his clothes, while they were knocking for admission. Should he try and escape down the stairs or through the window, down into the yard of the hostel? He went to the other window and peeped out. It was a man and a woman,—probably an eloping couple! He laughed a thin mirthless laugh and once more got back into bed.

This time he slept and dreamed that he was looking out of the window into the hostel yard. Gradually it filled with dark water nearly level with the sill. Then he saw something on the other side, floating on the surface. It seemed to be coming his way. Slowly it113 rose;—it was Aline, her arms hanging limply from the shoulders and the head falling over to one side, with the mouth open and a great gash above the forehead. It came nearer still. He tried to get away from the ............