“I hope your friends live near the top of the hill, missus.  A storm is coming up, and it’s getting very dark.  Will you have to walk far?”

“No, no,” she assured him with a quick glance up and around her.  “A little way, a very little way!” Then she became quiet and absorbed again.

“I’ve got to go on,” he broke in again as the top of the hill came in sight.  “I’ve a passenger for the eight-fifty train waiting for me more than a mile along the road.  I shall have to leave you after I set you down.”

“That’s right; I expect that.  I can take care of myself—­don’t worry.  Not but what you’re very kind,” she added after a moment, in her cultured voice, with just enough trace of accent to make it linger sweetly in the ear.

“Then here we are,” he called back a moment later, jerking his horses to a standstill and jumping down into the road.  “Goin’ east or goin’ west?” he asked as he took another glance at her frail and poorly protected figure.

“This way,” she answered, pointing east.

He stopped and stared at her.

“Nobody lives that way,” he said, “—­that is, nobody near enough for you to reach shelter before the storm bursts.”

“You are mistaken,” she said, cringing involuntarily as the first big clap of thunder rolled in endless echoes among the mountains.  And turning about, she started hurriedly into the shadows of the narrow cross-road.

He gave one glance back at his horses, the twitching of whose ears showed nervousness, uttered some familiar word and launched out after the woman.  “Pardon me, missus,” he cried, “but is it Miss Brown’s you mean?”

The widow stopped, glanced back at him over her shoulder, made a quick, protesting gesture and dashed on.

With a shake of his head and a muttered, “Well, women do beat the devil!” he retraced his steps; and she proceeded on alone.

As the last sound of his horses’ hoof-beats died out on the road, a second clap of thunder seemed to bring heaven and earth together.  She scarcely looked up.  She was approaching a little weather-beaten house nestled among trees on the edge of a deep gorge.  As her eyes fell on it, her footsteps quickened, and lifting a hasty hand, she pulled off her veil.  A change quite indescribable, but real for all that, had taken place in her worn and waxen features.  Not joy, but a soft expectancy relieved them from their extreme tension.  If a friend awaited her, that friend would have no difficulty in recognizing her now.  But alas!

A few steps more, and she stood before the door.  It had a desolate look; the whole house had a desolate look, possibly because every shade was drawn.  But she did not notice this; she was too sure of her welcome.  Raising her hand to the knocker, she gave two sharp raps.  Then she waited.  No answer from within—­no sound of hurrying steps—­only another rumble in the sky and a quick rustling of the trees on either side of her as if the wind which made the horizon black had sent an avant-courieur over the hilltops.