A human figure came into view as Harry had traversed the greater part of the open space, and the woods of Royd were a mile or so in front of him. It was the figure of a woman, and was immediately between him and the point towards which he was riding. He knew all the people who lived in the scattered cottages and farms between Royd and the sea; there were not many of them, and none just here. He wondered who it could be going in that direction, and what she was doing so far away from human habitation. As he rode on, he saw that it was a girl, and a stranger, which was somewhat surprising, as the nearest place to which strangers came was miles away. He had left off singing, but one of the dogs barked, and the girl turned round, evidently startled and perhaps a little alarmed. He was near enough now to see her face. She was very young, hardly more than a child, for her hair was not knotted up under her hat, but tied behind with a big bow. She was tall and slim. The wind took her skirts as she stood there, and revealed the supple grace of her young figure, firmly but lightly poised against it. She was dressed in a coat and skirt of brown tweed, with a hat of soft straw firmly pinned on to her graceful head. So much Harry took in before he came near enough to see her face. Her features were fine and true, and she had a delicate skin, its colour freshened by the wind. Her eyes were dark, with a starry radiance in them; her lips were slightly parted as she looked at him approaching. She was beautiful, with the beauty half of a child, half of a woman. Harry reined in his horse as he came up to her, and for an appreciable instant they looked into one another’s eyes without speaking. Then the girl said: "I have lost my way. I don’t know where I’m going to," and laughed and blushed at the same time. Harry laughed, too, and slipped down off his horse. "Where do you want to go?" he asked. "I’ll show you the way, if you tell me." She was staying with her father, she said, at a cottage on the edge of the woods; she had come out when the rain had ceased to walk towards the sea, but it was farther than she had thought, and when she had turned back to see the unbroken line of the woods before her there was nothing to tell her which point to make for. The woman with whom she was lodging was the widow of a man who had worked in the Royd woods; he had died the year before and she had been given a pension and allowed to remain on in her cottage. It was in a group of three or four, about a mile from the Castle and a mile and a half from the village, which formed the nearest approach to an outlying hamlet that was to be found on the Royd lands. It was rather surprising that anybody should take lodgings there, though with the deep woods behind it and the moor in front, and the sea within view, many people might have chosen it to make holiday in, if it had come within their knowledge.