In subsequent years, when she attempted to recall consecutively the incidents of the ensuing forty-eight hours, they eluded her, like the flitting phantasmagoria that throng delirium; yet subtle links fastened the details upon her brain, and sometimes most unexpectedly, that psychic necromancer--association of ideas--selected some episode from the sombre kaleidoscope of this dismal journey, and set it in lurid light before her, as startling and unwelcome as the face of an enemy long dead. Life and personality partook in some degree of duality; all that she had been before she saw Elm Bluff, seemed a hopelessly distinct existence, yet irrevocably chained to the mutilated and blackened Afterward, like the grim and loathsome unions enforced by the Noyades of Nantes. The sun did not forget to shine, nor the moon to keep her appointment with the throbbing stars that signalled all along her circuit. Men whistled, children laughed; the train thundered through tunnels, and flew across golden stubble fields, where grain shocks and hay stacks crowded like tents of the God of plenty, in the Autumnal bivouac; and throughout the long days and dreary lagging nights. Beryl was fully conscious of a ceaseless surveillance, of an ever-present shadow, which was tall and gaunt, wore a drab overcoat and slouched hat, and was redolent of tobacco. As silent as two mummies in the crypts of Karnac they sat side by side; and twice when the officer touched her arm and asked if she would take some refreshments, she merely shook her head, and tightened the folds of her veil; shrinking closer to the window against which she leaned. Not until they approached X---, and she recognized some features of the landscape, were her lips unsealed: "What persons are responsible for my arrest?" "Our District Solicitor, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Dunbar, the lawyer, who made the affidavit under which the warrant was issued. I am only a deputy, acting under orders from the sheriff." "You are taking me to prison?" "Perhaps not; it depends on the result of the preliminary examination, and you may be allowed bail." A ray of hope silvered the shrouding gloom; there was a possibility of escaping the stain of incarceration. "When will the examination take place?" "About noon to-day. You will have time to eat something and freshen up a little. Here we are. What a crowd to welcome us! Don't stir. We will just wait a while, and I will get you into a carriage as quietly as possible."