She soon realized, however, that this was quite hopeless, and, at last, in desperation she flung on a cloak and went outside.  The night was still, the sky a wonderland of stars.  She paced to and fro with her face uplifted to the splendour for a long, long time.  And still there came no sound of hoofs along the lonely track.

Gradually she awoke to the fact that she was getting very tired.  She began to tell herself that she had been too hopeful.  They would not come that night.

Her knees were getting shaky, and she went indoors.  A cold supper had been spread.  She sat down and partook of food, scarcely realizing what she ate.  Then, reviving, she rallied herself on her foolishness.  Of course they would not come that night.  She had expected too much, had worn herself out to no purpose.  She summoned her common sense to combat her disappointment, and commanded herself sternly to go to bed before exhaustion overtook her.  She had behaved like a positive idiot.  It was high time she pulled herself together.

It was certainly growing late.  Mary Ann and her satellites had already retired to their own quarters some little distance from the bungalow.  She was quite alone in the eerie silence.  Obviously, bed was the only place if she did not mean to sit and shiver with sheer nervousness.  Stoutly she collected her mental forces and retreated to her room.  She was so tired that she knew she would sleep if she could control her imagination.

This she steadfastly set herself to do, with the result that sleep came to her at last, and in her weariness she sank into a deep slumber that, undisturbed by any outside influence, would have lasted throughout the night.  She had left a lamp burning in the sitting-room that adjoined her bedroom, and the door between ajar, so that she was not lying in complete darkness.  She had done the same the previous night, and had felt no serious qualms.  The light scarcely reached her, but it was a comfort to see it at hand when she opened her eyes.  It gave her a sense of security, and she slept the more easily because of it.

So for an hour or more she lay in unbroken slumber; then, like a cloud arising out of her sea of oblivion, there came to her again that dream of two horsemen galloping.  It was a terrible dream, all the more terrible because she knew so well what was coming.  Only this time, instead of the ledge along the ravine, she saw them clearly outlined against the sky, racing from opposite directions along a knife-edge path that stood up, sharp and jagged, between two precipices.

With caught breath she stood apart and watched in anguished expectation, watched as if held by some unseen force, till there came the inevitable crash, the terrible confusion of figures locked in deadly combat, and then the hurtling fall of a single horseman down that frightful wall of rock.  His face gleamed white for an instant, and then was gone.  Was it Guy?  Was it Burke?  She knew not. . . .