The party had turned off, as the dusk was falling, from the main-road into bridle-paths that they knew well, and were now approaching the village through the water meadows on the south-east side along a ride that would bring them, round the village, direct to the Dower House. In the gloom Anthony could make out the tall reeds, and the loosestrife and willowherb against them, that marked the course of the stream where he had caught trout, as a boy; and against the western sky, as he turned in his saddle, rose up the high windy hills where he had hawked with Hubert so many years before. It was a strange thought to him as he rode along that his very presence here in his own country was an act of high treason by the law lately passed, and that every day he lived here must be a day of danger. For Isabel, too, it was strange to be riding up again towards the battlefield of her desires--that battlefield where she had lived for years in such childish faith and peace without a suspicion of the forces that were lurking beneath her own quiet nature. But to both of them the sense of home-coming was stronger than all else--that strange passion for a particular set of inanimate things--or, at the most, for an association of ideas--that has no parallel in human emotions; and as they rode up the darkening valley and the lights of the high windows of the Hall began to show over the trees on their right, Anthony forgot his treason and Isabel her conflicts, and both felt a lump rise in the throat, and their hearts begin to beat quicker with a strange pleasurable pulse, and to Isabel's eyes at least there rose up great tears of happiness and content; neither dared speak, but both looked eagerly about at the pool where the Mayflies used to dance, at the knoll where the pigeons nested, at the little low bridge beneath which their inch-long boats used to slide sideways into darkness, and the broad marshy flats where the gorgeous irises grew. "How the trees have grown!" said Anthony at last, with an effort; "I cannot see the lights from the house." "Mrs. Carroll will have made ready the first-floor rooms then, on the south." "I am sorry they are not our own," said Anthony. "Ah, look! there is the dovecote," cried Isabel. They were passing up now behind the farm buildings; and directly afterwards came round in front of the little walled garden to the west of the house. There was a sudden exclamation from Anthony; and Isabel stared in silent dismay. The old house rose up before them with its rows of square windows against the night sky, dark. There was not a glimmer anywhere; even Mrs. Carroll's own room on the south was dark. They reined their horses in and stood a moment. "Oh, Anthony, Anthony!" cried Isabel suddenly, "what is it? Is there no one there?"