When she remembered it afterwards it seemed to her that the longest journey of her life was the one down the dark staircase. In reality her descent occupied only a few minutes; but the tumult of her emotions, the startled vigilance of her nerves, crowded these vivid instants with excitement. She lived years, not moments, while she hung there in the darkness, expecting the sound of her mother's voice or the vision of a grey head thrust out of the chamber doorway. What would her mother say if she discovered her? What would she say when she went upstairs and found her room empty? At the foot of the staircase Rambler poked his nose into her hand, and padded after her to the front door. He would have followed her outside, but stooping over him, she kissed his long anxious face before she pushed him back into the hall. Her eyes were heavy with tears as she hurried noiselessly across the porch, down the steps, and round the angle of the house to the rock pillar where she had hidden her bag. Not until she had passed through the gate and into the shadow of the woods, did she rest the heavy bag on the ground and stop to draw breath. Now, at last, she was safe from discovery. "If nobody comes by, I'll have to take some of the things out of the bag and try to carry it," she said aloud, in a desperate effort to cling to practical details. But it was scarcely likely, she told herself presently, that nobody would come by. Even on a rainy morning there were always a few farmers who went out to the station at daybreak. While she waited there by the bridge, she seemed to be alone on the earth. It was a solitude not of the body but of the spirit, vast, impersonal, and yet burdened, in some strange way, with an incommunicable regret. The night had released the wild scents of autumn, and these were mingled with the formless terrors that overshadowed her mind. She thought without words, enveloped in a despondency as shapeless as night. Up the road there was the measured beat of a trot, followed by the light rattle of a vehicle beyond the big honey-locust at the pasture bars. While she watched, the rattle grew louder, accompanied by the jarring turn of a screw, and a minute later a queer two-wheeled gig, with a hood like a chicken coop, appeared on the slope by the gate. She knew the vehicle well; it belonged to Mr. Kettledrum, the veterinarian, and she had passed it frequently on the road to the station. "He will talk me to death," she thought, with dogged patience, "but I can't help it." Lifting the carpet bag, which felt heavier than it had done at the start, she stepped out into the road and waited until the nodding gig drew up beside her. Mr. Kettledrum, a gaunt, grizzled man of middle age, with a beaked nose and a drooping moustache, which was dyed henna-colour from tobacco, looked down at her with his sharp twinkling eyes.