He shivered as he thought of it; yes, his hair lifted and his lip twitched involuntarily, for to Adrian’s racked nerves and distorted vision this ghost of the good man whom he had betrayed was no child of phantasy.  He had woken in the night and seen it standing at his bedside, plague-defiled and hunger-wasted, and because of it he dreaded to sleep alone, especially in that creaking, rat-haunted mill, whose very board seemed charged with some tale of death and blood.  Heavens!  At this very moment he thought he could hear that dead voice calling down the gale.  No, it must be the curlew, but at least he would be going home.  Home—­that place home—­with not even a priest near to confess to and be comforted!

Thanks be to the Saints! the wind had dropped a little, but now in place of it came the snow, dense, whirling, white; so dense indeed that he could scarcely see his path.  What an end that would be, to be frozen to death in the snow on these sand-hills while the spirit of Dirk van Goorl sat near and watched him die with those hollow, hungry eyes.  The sweat came upon Adrian’s forehead at the thought, and he broke into a run, heading for the bank of the great dyke that pierced the dunes half a mile or so away, which bank must, he knew, lead him to the mill.  He reached it and trudged along what had been the towpath, though now it was overgrown with weeds and rushes.  It was not a pleasant journey, for the twilight had closed in with speed and the thick flakes, that seemed to heap into his face and sting him, turned it into a darkness mottled with faint white.  Still he stumbled forward with bent head and close-wrapped cloak till he judged that he must be near to the mill, and halted staring through the gloom.

Just then the snow ceased for a while and light crept back to the cold face of the earth, showing Adrian that he had done well to halt.  In front of where he stood, within a few paces of his feet indeed, for a distance of quite twenty yards the lower part of the bank had slipped away, washed from the stone core with which it was faced at this point, by a slow and neglected percolation of water.  Had he walked on therefore, he would have fallen his own height or more into a slough of mud, whence he might, or might not have been able to extricate himself.  As it was, however, by such light as remained he could crawl upon the coping of the stonework which was still held in place with old struts of timber that, until they had been denuded by the slow and constant leakage, were buried and supported in the vanished earthwork.  It was not a pleasant bridge, for to the right lay the mud-bottomed gulf, and to the left, almost level with his feet, were the black and peaty waters of the rain-fed dyke pouring onwards to the sea.

“Next flood this will go,” thought Adrian to himself, “and then the marsh must become a mere which will be bad for whomever happens to be living in the Red Mill.”  He was on firm ground again now, and there, looming tall and spectral against the gloom, not five hundred yards away, rose the gaunt sails of the mill.  To reach it he walked on six score paces or more to the little landing-quay, where a raised path ran to the building.  As he drew near to it he was astonished to hear the rattle of oars working in rollocks and a man’s voice say: