The road he was following led to a branching lane, the same that Angela was turning up that misty Christmas Eve when she saw Lady Bellamy glide past in her carriage.  This lane had in former ages, no doubt, to judge from its numerous curves, been an ancient forest-path, and it ran to the little bridge over the stream that fed the lake—­a point that, by travelling as the crow flies from Pigott’s cottage, might be reached in half the time.  This fact Arthur seemed at that dreadful moment to suddenly realize, more probably from natural instinct than from any particular knowledge of the lay of the land.  He did not speak again to Pigott, and she was too frightened at his face to speak to him.  He only looked at her, but she never forgot that look so long as she lived.  Then he turned like a mad thing, and went crash through the thick fence that hedged the road, and ran at full speed towards the lake, diverging neither to the right nor to the left, but breaking his way without the slightest apparent difficulty through everything that opposed him.

Very soon he came to the little bridge, and here, struck by some new instinct, he halted.  He did not appear to be out of breath, but he leaned on the rail of the bridge and groaned like a dying man.  His ghastly face made a blot in the mimic scenery of the place, which was really very pretty.  The bridge commanded no view, for the little creek it spanned, and into which the stream ran, gave a turn before it grew into the neck of the lake; but it was hedged in by greenery, and the still pool beneath it was starred with water-lilies, turning their innocent eyes up to the blue sky, and looking as peaceful as though there were no stormy winds or waters in the world to toss them.  Amongst these water-lilies a moorhen had built her nest, and presently she came clucking out right under Arthur’s feet, followed by ten or a dozen little hurrying black balls, each tipped with sealing-wax red.  She looked very happy with her brood—­as happy as the lilies and the blue sky—­and the sight made him savage.  He took up a large stone that lay by him and threw it at her.  It hit her on the back and killed her, and Arthur laughed loud as he watched her struggle, and then lie still, while the motherless chicks hurried, frightened, away.  And yet since he was a boy he had never till now wantonly injured any living creature.

Presently, the dead water-hen floated out of sight, and he roused himself, straightened his clothes, which had been somewhat torn and deranged, and, with a steady step and a fixed smile upon his lips, went forward, no longer at a run, but walking quietly up the path that led to the big oak and shaded glen.  In five minutes he was there.

Again he paused and looked.  There was something to see.  On one of the stone seats, dressed in black, her face deathly pale, her head resting on her hand, and trouble in her eyes, sat Angela.  On the other was her constant companion, the dog which he had given her.  He remembered how, a little more than a year before, she had surprised him in the same way, and he had looked upon her and loved her.  He could even smile at the strange irony of fate that had, under such curiously reversed circumstances, brought him back to surprise her, to look upon her, and hate her.