The wooded common, indeed, with its high, withered bracken, together with the hills encircling the farm, had been the cover from which he had carried out his prying campaign upon his former wife.  As he sat or knelt, mechanically, under the high and shadowy spaces of the Abbey, his mind filled with excited recollections of that other evening when, after tearing his hand badly on some barbed wire surrounding one of Colonel Shepherd’s game preserves, so that it bled profusely, and he had nothing to bandage it with, he had suddenly become aware of voices behind him, and of a large party of men in khaki—­Canadian foresters, by the look of them, from the Ralstone timber camp, advancing, at some distance, in a long extended line through the trees; so that they were bound to come upon him if he remained in the wood.  He turned back at once, faced the barbed wire again, with renewed damage both to clothes and hands, and ran, crouching, down the green road leading to the farm, his wound bleeding as he ran.  Then he had perceived an old labourer making for him with shouts.  But under the shelter of the cart-shed, he had first succeeded in tying his handkerchief so tightly round his wrist, with his teeth and one hand, as to check the bleeding, which was beginning to make him feel faint.  Then, creeping round the back of the farm, he saw that the upper half of the stable door was open, and leaping over it, he had hidden among the horses, just as Halsey came past in pursuit.  The old man—­confound him!—­had made the circuit of the farm, and had then gone up the grass road to the hill.  Delane, looking out from the dark stable, had been able to watch him through the dusk, keeping an eye the while to the opposite door opening on the farm-yard.  But the labourer disappeared, and in the dark roomy stable, with its beamed roof, nothing could be heard but the champing and slow tramping movements of the splendid cart-horses.  Rachel’s horses!  Delane passed his free hand over two of them, and they turned their stately heads and nosed him in a quiet way.  Then he vaulted again over the half door, and hurried up the hill, in the gathering darkness.

He was aware of the ghost-story.  He had heard it and the story of the murder from a man cutting bracken on the common; and he had already formed some vague notions of making use of it for the blackmailing of Rachel.  It amused him to think that perhaps his sudden disappearance would lead to a new chapter of the old tale.

Then at the recollection of Rachel’s prosperity and peace, of her sleek horses and cows, her huge hay and corn stacks, her comfortable home, and her new lover, a fresh shudder of rage and hatred gripped him.  She had once been his thing—­his chattel; he seemed to see her white neck and breast, her unbound hair on the pillow beside him—­and she had escaped him, and danced on him.

Of course she had betrayed him—­of course she had had a lover!  What other explanation was there of her turning against him?—­of her flight from his house?  But she had been clever enough to hide all the traces of it.  He recalled his own lame and baffled attempts to get hold of some evidence against her, with gnashing of teeth....