And then—­suddenly a strange thing happened.  Suddenly, clear-cut as a cameo before his fevered vision, there arose against the dripping darkness his wife’s face.  Pale and pure as the face of a saint, it shone before him like a star.  There was no reproach in the level eyes; there was no contempt.  But they looked through him, they looked beyond him, and saw him not.

A violent tremor went through him, a nameless, unspeakable dread.  The curses died upon his lips.  He stared and stared again.

And while he stared, the vision faded before his eyes into nothingness.  He was alone once more in the darkness and the drenching rain; alone with a little gibing voice that seemed to come from within and yet was surely the voice of a devil jeering a devil’s tattoo in time to his horse’s hoof-beats, telling him he was mad, mad, mad!

Three minutes later he rode heavily into his own stable-yard.

A group of servants scattered dumbly before him as he appeared.  The glare of lights dazzled him, but he fancied they looked at him strangely.  He flung an oath at the groom who stepped forward to take his horse.

“What are you staring at?  What’s the matter?”

The man murmured something unintelligible.

Sir Giles dismounted and scowled around.  His limbs were stiff and not over steady.

“What’s the matter with you all?” he growled.  “You look like a crowd of death’s heads.  Hullo!  What’s this?”

He had caught sight of something he had not seen before, something that sent him striding furiously forward.  For there in the centre of the yard, standing huddled on three legs, was the grey horse his wife had ridden.  Limp and draggled, plastered with mud and foam, with a great streaming gash on the shoulder, and head hanging down in utter exhaustion, stood the grey.

“What’s this?” demanded Sir Giles again.  “Where’s her ladyship?”

A shudder seemed to run through the assembled men.  There was a moment’s silence.  Then old Dimsdale, the butler, who was standing in the doorway that led to the servants’ quarters, stumped forward and made reply.

“The animal’s come home alone, Sir Giles.”

“What?” thundered his master.

The old man faced him with respectful firmness.  No one had ever seen Dimsdale agitated.

“As I said, Sir Giles,” he answered, with a certain deferential obstinacy.  “The animal’s come back alone.”

“Only just come in, sir,” chimed in a groom.  “We was just beginning to wonder when he came limping in in this state.  Looks as if her ladyship had met with a accident.”

Sir Giles rounded upon him with a violence that brought his surmisings to an abrupt end.  Then, having worked off the first heat of his fury, he turned again to Dimsdale.

“What the devil is to be done?  I never saw her after the first kill.”

“And where might that be, Sir Giles?” questioned Dimsdale.