She touched her horse with the whip and galloped away after the others, and the bright winter's day seemed to me less bright when she had gone. I watched her out of sight, and at the bend of the grassy road she turned round in her saddle and waved her whip. I returned her farewell with my hat, then, when she disappeared, I went back to my place amongst the men, and worked till the perspiration streamed down my face, and I was obliged to take off my coat and hang it on a branch of a fallen tree. But I felt all the better for it, for it has always seemed to me, as it did then, that hard physical labour is the most magnificent relaxation for an over-wrought mind. When the sun set and our day's work was over, I was stiff and my arms were sore, but my heart was lighter than it had been since this crisis had come. I stood filling my pipe and chatting to the foreman whilst one of the labourers had gone for my horse, until he, too, followed the others, and I was left alone. At least I thought so, but I was mistaken. A voice, croaking and weak, almost at my shoulder, suddenly startled me, and I turned round to find an old woman, bent double, leaning on her stick, with her bead-like eyes fixed upon me. "Who be'st you?" she said. "Be you him as they call the agent?" I acknowledged that it was so, and that my name was Arbuthnot. "It's a loi," she answered, deliberately. "Dost think that Sarah Milsham knaw'st not a Devereux when she seest one? Be'st thou Muster Herbert's son? God bless him." I looked around anxiously, but there was not a soul in sight. "Thou be'st a son o' my Mr. Herbert," she muttered. "I knaw'st thou be'st so like him that I thought thee was a ghost, boy. What be'st thou a doing here? Wheres't thy father?" "Abroad, mother, since you know me. Who are you?" "Who be I?" she laughed, a mirthless, unpleasant laugh. "Why, thee hasna heard of Sarah Milsham? I nursed your father when he were a baby. What be'st a doing here, boy? Hast come to kill Rupert Devereux?" "He deserves it," I cried, hotly. "So afore God he does," cried the old hag tremulously, "and die he will, for I ha' seen the mark o' death upon his forehead. But it'll be no by your hand, no by your hand, boy. What be'st a doing here? Go to thy father, boy! Why hast left him alone?" "I am going," I answered. "Please God I shall be with him before many months." "Ay, go, boy, go," she quivered out, "and tell him this from me. Tell him that sure as Devereux Court is built upon a rock, I, Sarah Milsham, shall live to see him here again. Sure as that limb of hell, Rupert Devereux, bears the seal of death upon his forehead, so sure the day will come when the whole country shall welcome him home again, and old Sir Francis shall be proud t' own him for his son. Tell him Sarah Milsham said so."