She started in affright, for just then a strange, hoarse shriek rang out of the wood to her left, and it sounded so wild and agonising that she stood trembling and listening for awhile. "It was like as if someone had jumped into one of the deep river holes or the big pit," she muttered; "but I dursen't go to see. It was very horrid." Whatever the cry, it was not repeated, and the woman hurried on for about a mile, when, coming to a side lane, she hesitated as to the course she should take, and ended by going straight on. At the end of a score of paces she stopped short, turned and hurried back to the side lane, down which she walked as fast as her bundle would let her. "I don't care, I will," she muttered; "thirty pound a year will keep us both. I'll fetch him away; he may be worth his weight in gold." Prologue--Chapter II. MINE OWN FAMILIAR FRIEND. They were about equal in height and build, and apparently within a year of the same age, the one dark, and wearing, what was unusual in those days, a short crisp beard and moustache; the other fair and closely-shaven as to lip and chin, but with a full brown whisker clothing his cheeks. The former was evidently terribly agitated, for his face worked and he was very pallid, while the latter looked flushed and nervous, the hand that grasped his trout-rod twitching convulsively; and he kept glancing at his companion as they strode along past the cottage. "What I ask you is"--the darker of the two was saying. "For Heaven's sake be silent till we get farther on, Rob, and I'll tell you all you want to know." There was silence for awhile, and the two young men walked rapidly on, turning through a woodland path, when the trees caught the rod of the one addressed as Rob, and he cast it impatiently aside, stopping short directly after in an opening where the path wound round the brink of a deep gravel-pit, the wayfarer being protected from a fall by a stout oaken railing. "Now, sir," exclaimed the first speaker excitedly; "no one can hear us." "No," said the fair man in a nervous, hesitating way. "Go on; say what you have to say." "It is soon said, James Huish. I have been away with my regiment in Canada two years. Previous to that chance threw me into the company of a sweet, pure girl, little more than a child then. I used to come down here fishing." "You did!" exclaimed the other hoarsely. "I did, and visited at that cottage time after time. Man, man, I tell you," he continued, speaking rapidly in his excitement, "the recollection of those days has been my solace in many a bitter winter's night, and I have looked forward to my return as the great day of my existence." "Stop!" said the other nervously. "Tell me this, Rob: did she--did she love you?"