“I thought you called me,” Ruth answered. “But perhaps it was a dream. I thought you were frightened, as you were that night at the Stones. You are very cold. Are you frightened?” “I have been,” Frances said. Ruth pressed close to her. “Has someone been unkind to you? Is it—is it Uncle Arthur?” But Frances could not answer her. She was conscious of a weight of tears at her heart to which she dared not give vent. “Shall we go upstairs?” said Ruth, with soft fingers entwined in hers. “And perhaps you will be able to sleep.” She yielded to the child’s guidance as she had yielded before without hesitation or misgiving. They went out into the passage. But here a sudden sound made her pause—it was the opening of the door that led into the garden. Ruth pulled at her hand. “It is only Grandpa. He is always late to bed.” But Frances drew back sharply. “You run up, darling!” she whispered. “I can’t come yet.” “Oh, please come!” said little Ruth. But though she heard a piteous note in the child’s voice, she could not. She freed her hand from Ruth’s clasp. “Run up!” she repeated. “I will come afterwards—if I can.” What impulse it was that urged her she could not have said, but it was too strong to be resisted. She saw Ruth start obediently but somewhat forlornly up the stairs, and she drew herself back into a deep recess under the staircase and crouched there, not breathing. Ruth was right. It was the old man who had entered. She discerned him dimly as he came up the passage, moving with the weary gait of age. He paused at the kitchen-door as though he were listening, and she shrank more closely into her hiding-place, dreading discovery. But in a moment he pushed open the door and entered, closing it behind him. Then the impulse to escape came to her, or perhaps it had been there, dormant against her breathless heart, the whole time. She saw the place as a monstrous prison, stone-walled and terrible, herself a captive guarded on all sides, helpless, beaten by circumstances, broken by Fate. And then this chance—this solitary chance of freedom. Swiftly upon the closing of that door, she left her retreat, stole along the passage to the door, lifted the latch and was out upon the brick path in the moonlight. The hollyhocks looked tall and ghostly; the garden lay before her as if asleep. She caught her shawl about her, and fled along the narrow path. She reached the door in the wall, and opening it peered forth. There was no weakness about her now. She was inspired by the strength that is borne of utter need. She saw no one, and so slipped out on to the lawn by the bed of mignonette in front of the dairy-window. The scent of it rose up in the night like incense. As a thief she crept along in the shadow of the house to the gate that led into the farmyard.