‘Have you a stout horse in the stables?’ Redworth asked.

‘You remember the mare Bertha; you have ridden her.’

‘The mare would do, and better than a dozen horses.’  He consulted his watch.  ’Let me mount Bertha, I engage to deliver a letter at The Crossways to-night.’

Lady Dunstane half inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she sought, but said:  ‘Will you find your way?’

He spoke of three hours of daylight and a moon to rise.  ’She has often pointed out to me from your ridges where The Crossways lies, about three miles from the Downs, near a village named Storling, on the road to Brasted.

The house has a small plantation of firs behind it, and a bit of river—­rare for Sussex—­to the right.  An old straggling red brick house at Crossways, a stone’s throw from a fingerpost on a square of green:  roads to Brasted, London, Wickford, Riddlehurst.  I shall find it.  Write what you have to say, my lady, and confide it to me.  She shall have it to-night, if she’s where you suppose.  I ’ll go, with your permission, and take a look at the mare.  Sussex roads are heavy in this damp weather, and the frost coming on won’t improve them for a tired beast.  We haven’t our rails laid down there yet.’

‘You make me admit some virtues in the practical,’ said Lady Dunstane; and had the poor fellow vollied forth a tale of the everlastingness of his passion for Diana, it would have touched her far less than his exact memory of Diana’s description of her loved birthplace.

She wrote: 

’I trust my messenger to tell you how I hang on you.  I see my ship making for the rocks.  You break your Emma’s heart.  It will be the second wrong step.  I shall not survive it.  The threat has made me incapable of rushing to you, as I might have had strength to do yesterday.  I am shattered, and I wait panting for Mr. Redworth’s return with you.  He has called, by accident, as we say.  Trust to him.  If ever heaven was active to avert a fatal mischance it is to-day.  You will not stand against my supplication.  It is my life I cry for.  I have no more time.  He starts.  He leaves me to pray—­ like the mother seeing her child on the edge of the cliff.  Come.  This is your breast, my Tony?  And your soul warns you it is right to come.  Do rightly.  Scorn other counsel—­the coward’s.  Come with our friend—­the one man known to me who can be a friend of women.

‘Your Emma.’

Redworth was in the room.  ’The mare ‘ll do it well,’ he said.  ’She has had her feed, and in five minutes will be saddled at the door.’

‘But you must eat, dear friend,’ said the hostess.

’I’ll munch at a packet of sandwiches on the way.  There seems a chance, and the time for lunching may miss it.’

‘You understand . . . ?’

‘Everything, I fancy.’

‘If she is there!’

‘One break in the run will turn her back.’