Thought became vague at last and finally obscured in the mists of sleep.  She lay still on the narrow bed and slept long and deeply.

It must have been after several hours that her dream came to her.  It arose out of a sea of oblivion—­a vision unsummoned, wholly unexpected.  She saw Burke Ranger galloping along the side of a dry and stony ravine where doubtless water flowed in torrents when the rain came.  He was bending low in the saddle, his dark face set forward scanning the path ahead.  With a breathless interest she watched him, and the thunder of his horse’s hoofs drummed in her brain.  Suddenly, turning her eyes further along the course he followed, she saw with horror round a bend that which he could not see.  She beheld another horseman galloping down from the opposite direction.  The face of this horseman was turned from her, but she did not need to see it.  She knew, as it is given in dreams to know beyond all doubting, that it was Guy.  She recognized his easy seat in the saddle, the careless grace of his carriage.  He was plunging straight ahead with never a thought of danger, and though he must have seen the turn as he approached it, he did not attempt to check the animal under him.  Rather he seemed to be urging it forward.  And ever the thunder of the galloping hoofs filled her brain.

Tensely she watched, in a suspense that racked her whole body.  Guy reached the bend first.  There was room for only one upon that narrow ledge.  He went round the curve with the confidence of one who fully expected a clear path ahead.  And then—­on the very edge of the precipice—­he caught sight of the horseman galloping towards him.  He reined back.  He threw up one hand as his animal staggered under him, and called a warning.  But the thudding of the hoofs drowned all other sound.

Sylvia’s heart stood still as if it could never beat again.  Her look flashed to Burke Ranger.  He was galloping still—­galloping hard.  One glimpse she had of his face as he drew near, and she knew that he saw the man ahead of him, for it was set and terrible—­the face of a devil.

The next instant she heard the awful crash of collision.  There was a confusion indescribable, there on the very brink of the ravine.  Then one horse and its rider went hurling headlong down that wall of stones.  The other horseman struck spurs into his animal and galloped up the narrow path to the head of the ravine without a backward glance.

She was left transfixed by horror in a growing darkness that seemed to penetrate to her very soul.  Which of the two had galloped free?  Which lay shattered there, very far below her in an abyss that had already become obscure?  She agonized to know, but the darkness hid all things.  At last she tore it aside as if it had been a veil.  She went down, down into that deep place.  She stumbled through a valley of awful desolation till she came to that which she sought;—­a fallen horse, a rider with glassy eyes upturned.