Poor Joan! Hers was indeed a hard lot harder even than his own! It was a year this day, he remembered, since first he had met her yonder by the ruins of Ramborough Abbey. Who could know all that she had suffered during this eventful year, or measure what was left for her to suffer in the time to come? Alas! he could see no escape for her; she had entered on an unnatural marriage, but still it was a marriage, and she must abide by her bargain, from which nothing could free her except the death of her husband or of herself. And this she had done for his sake, to safeguard him: ah! there was the bitterest part of it. While Henry walked on, chewing the cud of these unhappy reflections, suddenly from the direction of Ramborough Abbey, that was a quarter of a mile or more away, there floated to his ear the sound of a single cry far off, indeed, but strangely piercing, followed almost instantly by the report of a gun loaded with black powder. He halted and listened, trying to persuade himself that the cry was that of some curlew which a poacher had shot out of season; only to abandon the theory so soon as he conceived it, for something in his heart told him that this scream was uttered by mortal lips by the lips of a woman in despair or agony. A few seconds passed, and he heard other sounds, those of short, sharp yells uttered in quick succession, but of so inhuman a note that he was unable to decide if they proceeded from a man or from some wounded animal. He started forward at a run to solve the mystery, and as he went the yells grew louder and came nearer. Presently he halted, for there, from over the crest of a little rise in the road, and not fifteen paces away, appeared the figure of a man running with extraordinary swiftness. His hat had fallen from him, his long hair seemed to stand up upon his head, his eyes stared wide in terror and were ablaze with the fire of madness, his face was contorted and ashy white, and from his open mouth issued hideous and unearthly sounds. So shocking was his aspect in the moonlight that Henry sprang to one side and bethought him of the tale of the Ramborough goblin. Now the man was level with him, and as he went by he turned his head to look at him, and Henry knew the face for that of Samuel Rock. “Dead!” shrieked the madman, wringing his hands— “dead, _dead!_” and he was gone. Henry gasped, for his heart grew cold with fear. Joan had left him to join her husband; and now, what had happened? That cry, the gunshot, and the sight that he had seen, all seemed to tell of suicide or murder. No, no, he would not believe it! On he went again, till presently he saw a lad running towards him who called to him to stop. “Who are you?” he gasped, “and what is the matter here?” “I’m Willie Hood, and that’s just what I should like to know, Sir Henry,” was the answer, “more especial as not five minutes since I thought that I saw you walking up to the Abbey yonder.”