We were a long time riding; so long that the dawn was on us by the time we were within shot of the enemy. I don't remember very much about the ride, except that it was unreal, very unreal; for the mists came down, blotting the world from us, so that we rode in a swirl of cold grey, amid a noise of dropping. When we got to the top of the long hill after Chideock I was bidden halt at a cross-roads, with a waggon full of ammunition, while the force moved on to the attack. The hills were showing up clearly above the mist; but the valley lay like a sea, a great grey formless level, like some world of the ghosts. The troops passed down in it, moving pretty briskly, lest the mist should lift before they were in position. Most of them knew the country, so that they could well walk confidently; but their quickness had something nervous in it, as though they were ill at ease. Very soon they were out of sight, out of hearing, swallowed up in the fog. I waited a long time (as it seemed) up there at the cross-roads. After a long wait I rode a little down the hill, from sheer anxiety. I pulled up in a bank of cloud, through which I could see dimly, in the growing light, for about a dozen yards. I was leaning well forward, listening for the sound of shooting, when something made me look down. Someone was standing at my side, slipping something into my pocket. It gave me a start. I clutched at the person. It was the old lame puppet-man who had been at Lyme the day before. “Latter for ee,” he said in a whisper. “Read en, unless you'm a fool.” His hand pressed lightly on my bridle hand for an instant; then he ducked sideways swiftly into the wilderness of ferny gorse at the side of the road, where I could not hope to follow him, even if the mist had not hidden him. Something in the voice, something in the lightness of the touch startled me into the knowledge. As he ducked, it came over me that this old man was Aurelia disguised, come to spy upon us, but bent, also, on giving me a warning, some little kind word of advice, at the beginning of my lord's war. I ought to have recognized her before. I had been blind. She had been under my eyes the whole day, yet I had never once suspected, no one, of all that army, had suspected. She had been disguised by a master-hand. She had played her part like a great actress. It was terrible to think of the risk she was running. One man's suspicion, in a time of war, would have been enough to give her to a horrible death. I tried to follow her into the jungle into which she had vanished; but my horse would not face the furze. I tried hard to see her, but it was no use; the tangle was too thick; she had gone. I called out to her softly; but I got no answer; only, at some little distance away, I heard a twig snap under a passer's foot.