The sound alarmed me, and yet it was neither an explosion of fire-arms nor a startling cry for help.

One word reached me in the darkness—­one single word of bitter and withering reproach.

Heedless of the risk I ran and the peril to which I exposed myself, I dashed forward with a resolve to penetrate the mystery, until I came to the gap in the rough stone wall where Leithcourt’s habit was to halt each day at sundown.

There, in the falling darkness, the sight that met my eyes at the spot held me rigid, appalled, stupefied.

In that instant I realized the truth—­a truth that was surely the strangest ever revealed to any man.

CHAPTER V

CONTAINS CERTAIN CONFIDENCES

As I dashed forward to the gap in the boundary wall of the wood, I nearly stumbled over a form lying across the narrow path.

So dark was it beneath the trees that at first I could not plainly make out what it was until I bent and my hands touched the garments of a woman.  Her hat had fallen off, for I felt it beneath my feet, while the cloak was a thick woolen one.

Was she dead, I wondered?  That cry—­that single word of reproach—­sounded in my ears, and it seemed plain that she had been struck down ruthlessly after an exchange of angry words.

I felt in my pocket for my vestas, but unfortunately my box was empty.  Yet just at that moment my strained ears caught a sound—­the sound of someone moving stealthily among the fallen leaves.  Seizing my gun, I demanded who was there.

There was, however, no response.  The instant I spoke the movement ceased.

As far as I could judge, the person in concealment was within the wood about ten yards from me, separated by an impenetrable thicket.  As, however, I stood out against the sky, my silhouette was, I knew, a well-defined mark for anyone with fire-arms.

It seemed evident that a tragedy had occurred, and that the victim at my feet was a woman.  But whom?

Of a sudden, while I stood hesitating, blaming myself for being without matches, I heard the movement repeated.  Someone was quickly receding—­escaping from the spot.  I listened again.  The sound was not of the rustling of leaves or the crackling of dried sticks, but the low thuds of a man’s feet racing over softer ground.  He had scaled the rough stone dyke and was out in the turnip-field adjacent.

I sprang through the gap, straining my eyes into the gloom, and as I did so could just distinguish a dark figure receding quickly beneath the wall of the wood.

In an instant I dashed after it.  But the agility of whoever the fugitive was, man or woman, was marvelous.  I considered myself a fairly good runner, but racing across those rough turnips and heavy, newly-plowed land in the darkness and carrying my gun soon caused me to pant and blow.  Yet the figure I was pursuing was so fleet of foot and so nimble in climbing the high rough walls that from the very first I was outrun.