She sat down in the grass by the wayside and called herself a fool, but she was afraid to go further. She and those friends of hers had made this place the entrance to a terrible and fascinating beyond. She remembered how they had feared to stay there in the failing light, daring each other to remain there alone after sunset. There was nothing to be afraid of, she said to herself; and yet she was afraid. She was hot with her long climb, and the place was quite deserted. She decided to take down her hair to cool herself. Curiously, she looked upon this simple act as deliciously daring and in some way wicked. She cast half-fearful glances at the green girt shadows of the descending road, as she shook out the masses of her hair. "If anyone should come!" she thought. "If he should come...!" She giggled nervously, and shivered. But as time passed, and no one came, she began to lose her fear, and presently she lay full length on the grass, and stared up into the pale blue dome of the sky until her eyes ached and she had to close them. The deep hush of the still afternoon enveloped her in a great calm. For a time she slept peacefully, and then she dreamed that she was rushing through the air, and that some one chased her. She wanted desperately to be captured, but it was ordained that she must fly, and she flew incredibly fast. She flew through the sunlight into darkness, and awoke to find that some one was standing between her and the sun. She lay still, paralysed with terror. She bitterly regretted her coming. She would have given ten years of life to be safe home in Marlow. "Now, where've I seen you before?" asked Sam Evans.... It was nearly dark when Blanche accosted a knot of women in the High Street with a question as to whether they had seen anything of her sister. One of the women laughed sneeringly. "Ah! She went over the hill this afternoon," she said. "We were in the fields that side, and saw her go." Blanche's face burned. "She hasn't! I know she hasn't!" she blurted out. "She isn't one of that sort." The woman laughed again. "She's one of the lucky ones," another woman remarked. "You can expect her back in a week or two's time." 4 On the same evening that Millie crossed the hill, Lady Eileen Ferrar encountered the spirit of passion in another shape. The thought of a lonely bathe tempted her, and she crossed the river, made her way through deserted Bisham, and back to the stream along a narrow, overhung lane beyond Bisham Abbey. The sun had set, but when she came out from the trees there was light in the sky and on the water. Overhead a few wisps of cirrus, sailing in the far heights of air, still caught the direct rays of the sun. Eileen paused on the bank, rejoicing in the glow of colour about her; but as she gazed, the little fleet of salmon-tinted clouds were engulfed in the great earth-shadow, and the delicate crisp rose-leaves were transfigured into flat stipples of steel grey.