For a long time Mrs. Wade had sat silent.  At length she rose, glanced at Lilian, and, without speaking left the room.

She went upstairs and into her bed-chamber, and here stood for a few minutes in the dark, purposeless.  Then she seated herself in a low chair that was by the bed side.  For her, too, the past night had been one of painful watching; her nerves threatened danger if she stayed in the same room with Lilian.  Here she could recover something of self-control, and think over the latest aspect of affairs.

Thus had she sat for nearly half an hour, when her reverie was broken by a sound from below.  It was the closing of the front door.  She sprang up and ran to the window, to see if any one passed out into the road; but no figure became visible.  The gate was closed; no one could have gone forth so quickly.  A minute or two passed, yet she heard and saw nothing.

Then she quickly descended the stairs.  The door of the sitting-room was open; the room was vacant.

“Lilian!” she called aloud, involuntarily.

She sprang to the front door and looked about in the little garden.  Some one moving behind caused her to turn round; it was the servant.

“Annie, has Mrs. Quarrier left the house?”

“Yes, m’m, she has.  I just had the kitchen door open, and I saw her go out—­without anything on her head.”

“Where can she be, then?  The gate hasn’t been opened; I should have heard it.”

One other way there was out of the garden.  By passing along a side of the cottage, one came into the back-yard, and thence, by a gate, into one of the fields which spread towards Bale Water.  Mrs. Wade remembered that Lilian had discovered this exit one day not long ago.

“I don’t understand it,” she continued, hurriedly.  “You run and put Your hat on, and then look up and down the road.  I’ll go to the back.”

Regardless of the cold night air, she hastened in the direction that Lilian must necessarily have taken.  Reaching the field, she could at first distinguish no object in the dark space before her.  But the sky was clear and starry, and in a few moments, running on the while, she caught sight of a figure not very far in advance.  That undoubtedly was Lilian, escaping, speeding over the meadows—­ whither?

The ground rose gradually, and at a distance of less than a quarter of a mile cut clearly across the sky.  Still advancing, though with less speed, she saw Lilian’s form gain the top of the rise, and there stand, a black, motionless projection from the ground.  If now she called in a loud voice, the fugitive must certainly hear her; but she kept silence.  By running quickly over the grass she might overtake her friend, who still lingered; but, as if her limbs had failed, she crouched down, and so remained until the dark figure all at once disappeared.

Immediately she started to her feet again, and pressed forward.  A few minutes, and she was at the top of the field, where Lilian had paused; panting, her heart throbbing, a cold sweat on her forehand.  From this point she looked over a grassy slope, towards the trees which shadowed Bale Water.  But her eye could discern nothing save outlines against the starry heaven.  All the ground before her lay in a wide-spreading hollow, and darkness cloaked it.