Now I struck the path at the end that is furthest from this house, and followed that half of it which runs down by the river bank, having the water on one side of it and the brushwood upon the other.  Along this lower path I wandered, my eyes fixed upon the ground, thinking deeply as I went, now of the joy of Lily’s love, and now of the sorrow of our parting and of her father’s wrath.  As I went, thus wrapped in meditation, I saw something white lying upon the grass, and pushed it aside with the point of the Spaniard’s sword, not heeding it.  Still, its shape and fashioning remained in my mind, and when I had left it some three hundred paces behind me, and was drawing near to the house, the sight of it came back to me as it lay soft and white upon the grass, and I knew that it was familiar to my eyes.  From the thing, whatever it might be, my mind passed to the Spaniard’s sword with which I had tossed it aside, and from the sword to the man himself.  What had been his business in this parish?—­an ill one surely—­and why had he looked as though he feared me and fallen upon me when he learned my name?

I stood still, looking downward, and my eyes fell upon footprints stamped in the wet sand of the path.  One of them was my mother’s.  I could have sworn to it among a thousand, for no other woman in these parts had so delicate a foot.  Close to it, as though following after, was another that at first I thought must also have been made by a woman, it was so narrow.  But presently I saw that this could scarcely be, because of its length, and moreover, that the boot which left it was like none that I knew, being cut very high at the instep and very pointed at the toe.  Then, of a sudden, it came upon me that the Spanish stranger wore such boots, for I had noted them while I talked with him, and that his feet were following those of my mother, for they had trodden on her track, and in some places, his alone had stamped their impress on the sand blotting out her footprints.  Then, too, I knew what the white rag was that I had thrown aside.  It was my mother’s mantilla which I knew, and yet did not know, because I always saw it set daintily upon her head.  In a moment it had come home to me, and with the knowledge a keen and sickening dread.  Why had this man followed my mother, and why did her mantilla lie thus upon the ground?

I turned and sped like a deer back to where I had seen the lace.  All the way the footprints went before me.  Now I was there.  Yes, the wrapping was hers, and it had been rent as though by a rude hand; but where was she?

With a beating heart once more I bent to read the writing of the footsteps.  Here they were mixed one with another, as though the two had stood close together, moving now this way and now that in struggle.  I looked up the path, but there were none.  Then I cast round about like a beagle, first along the river side, then up the bank.  Here they were again, and made by feet that flew and feet that followed.  Up the bank they went fifty yards and more, now lost where the turf was sound, now seen in sand or loam, till they led to the bole of a big oak, and were once more mixed together, for here the pursuer had come up with the pursued.