All was dark; the stars twinkling ineffectually in the sky, so far off, like spectators merely, or distant sentinels, not helpers; the trees in all their winter nakedness rustling overhead, interrupting the vision of these watchers; the grass soaked with rain and the heavy breath of winter, slipping below the hurrying feet. There was no sound, but only a sense of movement in the night as she passed. The most eager gaze could scarcely have made out what it was--a shadow, the flitting of a cloud, a thrill of motion among the dark shrubs and bushes, as if a faint breeze had got up suddenly and was blowing by. At that hour there was very little chance of meeting anybody in these damp and melancholy glades, but the passenger avoided all open spaces until she had got to some distance from the house. Even then, as she hurried across, her muffled figure was quite unrecognizable. It was enough to raise a popular belief that the park was haunted, but no more. She went on till she came to a thick copse about half-way between the house and the village. Then another figure made a step out of the thick cover to receive her, and the two together withdrew entirely into its shade. What was said there, what passed, no one, even though skirting the copse closely, could have told. The whisperers, hidden in its shade, were not without an alarm from time to time; for the path to the village was not far off, and sometimes a messenger from the house would pass at a distance, whistling to keep his courage up, or talking loudly if there were two, for the place was supposed to be ghostly. On this occasion the faint movement among the bare branches would stop, and all be as still as death. Then a faint thrill of sound, of human breathing, returned. The conversation was rapid. “At last!” the other said; “do you know I have waited here for hours these last nights?” “You knew it was impossible. How could I leave the house in such circumstances? Even now I have outraged decency by coming. I have gone against nature--” “Not for the first time,” was the answer, with a faint laugh. “If so, you should be the last to reproach me, for it was for you.” “Ah, for me! that is one way of putting it. Like all those spurious sacrifices, if one examined a little deeper. You have had the best of it, anyhow.” “All this,” she said, with a tone of despair, “has been said so often before. It was not for this you insisted on my coming. What is it? Tell me quickly, and let me go before I am found out. Found out! I am found out already. I dare not ask myself what they think.” “Whatever they think you may be sure it is not the truth. Nobody could guess at the truth. It is too unnatural, that I should be lurking here in wretchedness, and you--” “But you are comfortable,” she said quickly. “Jane told me--” “Comfortable according to Jane’s ideas, which are different from mine. What I want is to know what you are going to do; what is to become of me? Will you do me justice now, at last?”