The marvellous things she just now heard, so nearly saw—­for it had come very near to seeing, hadn’t?—­were avant couriers of these same journeying events, their appointed prelude.  She could explain neither how nor why—­but, very certainly, somehow.  Nor could she explain the relation—­if any—­coupling together the said marvels heard and the events.  Nevertheless, she knew the former rode ahead, whether in malignity or mercy, to forewarn her.  This place, The Hard, in virtue of its numerous vicissitudes of office and of ownership, of the memories and traditions which it harboured, both sinister, amiable, erudite, passionate, was singularly sentient, replete with influences.  In times of strain and stress the normal wears thin, and such lurking influences are released.  They break bounds, shouting—­to such as have the psychic genius—­convincing testimony of their existence.

All this Damaris perceived, standing in the middle of the room while the silver crescent moon looked in at her.  The stillness once again was absolute.  The dusk, save where the windows made pale squares upon the carpet, thick.  The four-post bed, gay enough by day with hangings and valences patterned in roses on a yellow ground, looked cavernous.  Carteret would lie under its black canopy to-night if—­

“If all goes well.”

Damaris said the words aloud, her thought becoming personal and articulate.

Once before she had heard the smugglers’ ponies, waiting in this same room.  Waiting at the open window to catch the first rumble of the wheels of a returning carriage.  Her poor dear Nannie, Sarah Watson, was returning home after a summer holiday spent with her own people in the north.  And Damaris, younger then by nearly five years, had listened impatiently, ready to skirmish down into the front hall—­directly the carriage turned the elbow of the drive—­and enclose her faithful nurse and foster-mother in arms of child-like love.  But destiny ruled otherwise.  In vain she waited.  Sarah Watson returned no more, death having elected to take her rather horribly to himself some hours previously amid the flaming wreckage of a derailed express.

What did this second hearing presage?  A like vain waiting and disclosure of death-dealing accident?  Notwithstanding her attitude of high resolution, the question challenged Damaris in sardonic fashion from beneath the black canopy of the great bed.  Her hand went up to the string of pearls which, on a sudden, grew heavy about her throat.

“But not—­not—­pray God, the dear man with the blue eyes,” she cried.

She was glad to be alone, in the encompassing semi-dark, for a warm wave of emotion swept over her, an ardour hardly of the spiritual sort.  Had she deceived herself?  Was she, in truth, desirous Carteret should approach her solely according to that earlier manner, in which she so simply trusted him?  Did she hail his coming as that of a wise counsellor merely—­or—­