Rushing wind and lashing rain; pale gleams of a fitful moon to show swaying trees that tossed wild arms to heaven, and a splashing quag below, mud and wind-swept pools, all lost again in the swirling dark. And buffeted thus, beaten by rain, smitten by unseen things, gasping in the wind's fierce gusts, my one thought was: A black-bodied chaise with red wheels--Captain Danby! How long I galloped at this wild and reckless pace I do not know, but little by little I became aware that the rain had ceased, the clouds were rent asunder and the moon looked down, pale and remote, upon a desolate countryside very ghostly and unreal and wholly unfamiliar. Before me was a winding road fringed with dripping, sombre trees and reining Wildfire to a standstill, I found that the wind had greatly abated its fury. But though the storm was over, the storm within me raged fierce as ever; therefore, heedless of where the morning found me, I spurred Wildfire forward and rode with slackened rein, leaving him to take me where he would. A black-bodied chaise--What should bring Diana in company with such brutal satyr as Captain Danby? Lost thus in agonising thought, I was riding with loosened rein and lax grip when Wildfire shied, swerved violently, throwing me from the saddle, and lying half-stunned, I heard him gallop away down the road. For a while I lay there with no desire to move, but at last, summoning all my resolution, I scrambled weakly to my feet and endeavoured to follow, but after some while, wondered to see it so dark and found I was among trees that closed about me ever denser. Yet I struggled on, pushing my way haphazard through the undergrowth, being yet much shaken by my fall, until I came out into a narrow way lit by the moon; but scarcely was I here than I paused to lean against a tree, overcome by a sick faintness. And thus leaned I some while to recover my strength, and in my ears the dismal drip, drip of sodden trees and the mournful sighing of the wind in their branches, a sigh that rose every now and then to a low wailing, very dreadful to hear. Now, all at once, I lifted my aching head, for, as my brain cleared, I knew that this wailing was not of the wind; thus I stood with breath in check waiting for it to come again. And suddenly I heard it, a low, murmurous cry, unutterably doleful. "O God--O God--I want to be dead--I want to be dead!" So I turned aside and, following the path, saw it ended at a frowning doorway set within a high and sinister wall; and recognising this door, this high wall and gloomy wood, I felt myself cold with that indefinable sense of impending evil which this desolate place had awoke in me before-- "O kind God--if I could only die!" Going in among the trees I saw a shape of misery outstretched face-down upon the sodden earth, a shape that wrung pale hands and writhed in awful manner. Trembling, I sank on one knee beside her. "Woman!" said I, laying hand lightly on her shoulder. "Child!"