"Men fear to come to him. There is a settled battle in him against every human soul. Yet a strange thing happened: at a lonely cot yesterday, where he called to learn if they had heard of you, a little girl stood by the door; and he looked at her, then suddenly caught her up and kissed her before he got on his horse again. The child was not feared at his fierceness neither, but laughed into his bloodshot eyes. The mother told Tom Putt." "Oh, why was I your daughter?" "Norcot went straight from Widecombe to Dartmouth, so Putt also tells. A deep man--how he hit the critical point--how he knew what was in our heads! He'll have watchers on all the beatable waters, and to-morrow he'll set to work to hunt himself." "If he should find me, John!" "Then I'll forgive him. Now farewell for a while. I shall see you again to-morrow night." They parted, and Grace read the letter that John had brought her. Stark was deeply concerned at her escape; but he wrote not one word of love in this missive. She missed that word, yet knew well how much he had upon his hands and how that this was no time for softness. And Lee, returning over the Moor, heard a horse's hoofs behind. He had scarcely dived into some old tin-streamer's workings and flung himself flat behind a furze-bush, when Peter Norcot went by in the dim tremor of dawn. So close was he that John saw his eyes were half shut, and that he nodded and nearly slept in his saddle. Light had broken eastward, and already the small life of the Moor stirred amid glimmering grass-blades. Norcot jogged onward to Fox Tor Farm, and Lee, wondering whether the lover or himself had worked harder during the past day and night, got back to his grandmother's cottage at Prince Town. Great bustle marked the farm when Peter reached it. Mrs. Malherb, haggard and careworn, greeted him where sleepy-eyed men and women were collected in the servants' hall. For a moment there was respite, because Malherb had already risen and ridden away. Norcot followed his kinswoman to her parlour, then sank into a chair and began to drag off his top-boots. "Any news, Annabel? I see from your face that there is none. This mad business of keeping her chained up! It was bound to end thus." "Maurice has started again--this time to Prince Town. Oh, Peter--his reason--I fear terribly for it! No human creature could endure what he has endured and keep sane. I assure him that she is safe on her own showing. I have it under her hand and seal. But he will not believe me or her. He is like the sea breaking on rocks--he never tires. After midnight he leapt up and was soon in the saddle again. He has gone to the War Prison now." "He should have gone there first. Many hours have been lost." "He will make trouble with Commandant Short, for he is in no mood to be denied." "What news had he of Stark's escape?" "We did not so much as know that the young man was escaped."