He broke off short and rode forward.  “I’m hanged if it is not Childe Harold,” he broke out, and he had no sooner assured himself of the fact than he threw himself from his saddle, tethered his horse and strode up the path to the broken-hinged door.

He stood on the threshold and stared.  What a hole it was—­what a hole!  And there she sat—­alone—­eighteen or twenty miles from home—­on a turned-up box near the black embers, her hands clasped loosely between her knees, her face rather awful, her eyes staring at the floor, as if she did not see it.

“Where is he now?” he heard her whisper to herself with soft weirdness.  “Where is he now?”

Sir Nigel stepped into the place and stood before her.  He had smiled with a wry unpleasantness when he had heard her evidently unconscious words.

“My good girl,” he said, “I am sure I do not know where he is—­but it is very evident that he ought to be here, since you have amiably put yourself to such trouble.  It is fortunate for you perhaps that I am here before him.  What does this mean?” the question breaking from him with savage authority.

He had dragged her back to earth.  She sat upright and recognised him with a hideous sense of shock, but he did not give her time to speak.  His instinct of male fury leaped within him.

“You!” he cried out.  “It takes a woman like you to come and hide herself in a place of this sort, like a trolloping gipsy wench!  It takes a New York millionairess or a Roman empress or one of Charles the Second’s duchesses to plunge as deep as this.  You, with your golden pedestal—­you, with your ostentatious airs and graces—­you, with your condescending to give a man a chance to repent his sins and turn over a new leaf!  Damn it,” rising to a sort of frenzy, “what are you doing waiting in a hole like this—­in this weather—­at this hour—­you—­you!”

The fool’s flame leaped high enough to make him start forward, as if to seize her by the shoulder and shake her.

But she rose and stepped back to lean against the side of the chimney—­to brace herself against it, so that she could stand in her lame foot’s despite.  Every drop of blood had been swept from her face, and her eyes looked immense.  His coming was a good thing for her, though she did not know it.  It brought her back from unearthly places.  All her child hatred woke and blazed in her.  Never had she hated a thing so, and it set her slow, cold blood running like something molten.

“Hold your tongue!” she said in a clear, awful young voice of warning.  “And take care not to touch me.  If you do—­I have my whip here—­I shall lash you across your mouth!”

He broke into ribald laughter.  A certain sudden thought which had cut into him like a knife thrust into flesh drove him on.

“Do!” he cried.  “I should like to carry your mark back to Stornham—­and tell people why it was given.  I know who you are here for.  Only such fellows ask such things of women.  But he was determined to be safe, if you hid in a ditch.  You are here for Mount Dunstan—­and he has failed you!”