The guests at the Folly, while they were dressing for dinner, peeped out from under their blinds and saw the snowflakes silting against the window-panes. They shrugged their shoulders at the lunacy that had brought them here in winter weather, and went downstairs resolved to make the best of a bad business. Laverack, feeling that he would have much to answer for if the snow should fasten them up in the house, exerted himself to keep the ball rolling. Laughter and jest increased apace, till Janet, facing her father from the opposite end of the table, thought she must surely go mad. Her mind was made up, and she feared lest the storm should render it impossible to cross the moor that night--feared lest some cause from within should detain her--feared, finally, lest the dinner should never end. When they had gained the drawing-room, and the men below had grown noisily insistent on their freedom, Janet slipped to the side of the lady-companion who helped her to do the honours of the house. "Look after these people, will you?" she said. "I have an atrocious headache, and I can't bear their foolishness." "Really, my dear, you sound quite vindictive. I am sorry you are so unwell; shall I send your maid up with some tea?" "Please don't. I would rather be left alone till to-morrow; talk and fuss jar on me so when I am like this. You will explain to every one? I mean to slip away quietly." A moment later she was speeding along the corridor that led to her bedroom. She panted with excitement, with dread of frustration at this eleventh hour; but her mouth was firm, and her eyes resolute. "What it is to have to lie! I _hate_ it," she muttered. "Only, I had to. What will Leo say, even if I do reach him safely?" she added, with a disturbed wrinkling of her forehead. She put on a cloak, and drew the pretty frilled hood over her head; then waited till she heard the men come up, and the drawing-room door close on the last of them. She went softly out by the side door, cutting short the growl of a chained-up mastiff by telling him who she was. Then across the whitened lawn, and up the rise till the open moor was gained--a slender, girlish figure, flitting shadow-like amongst the silent flakes. Her heart failed her as she reached the top; she seemed to be the sport of the storm-elves, and there was no living thing to help her to battle with the loneliness. She tried to sing, that so she might trick herself into the thought that she had company; but her voice was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and it sank affrighted by its own power to people the stillness with re-echoing cries. Her knees shook under her, and the bridle track showed dimly--more dimly, it seemed, with each succeeding step. Not till now had she understood what was meant by her foolhardy resolve to cross the five miles of desolation that lay between herself and Wynyates.