She passed down the lawn, got on to a side walk, and marched with slow but steady step towards the orchard. Soon she entered it. The shadows were deep, but the moonlight fell through the openings and faintly illuminated the obscurity. The grass stood knee deep. My feet crunched the dead leaves and snapped the rotten twigs. It was a portion of the grounds left untouched by the gardeners at my own request. The contrast between the trimmed gardens and the wild luxuriant orchard pleased me. Sometimes the shadows and the intervening trunks of the trees made it difficult for me to follow her. I wondered whither she was leading me. How utterly still was the place! Her naked feet made no noise as she advanced. Her form flitted and floated before me in the gloom like a spectre. She wound her way in and out among the trees with precision, while I blundered forward, sometimes stumbling with my shoulder against a black trunk, sometimes kicking and nearly falling over long iron-hard roots. Before long she gained the extremity of the orchard. The hedge that intersected her former house from the grounds rose thick and black. She stood motionless awhile, then knelt and began to scrape the earth with her hands, throwing the dried leaves furiously about her. Presently she desisted, rose, and went through a pantomime, the significance of which the gloom forbade me to interpret; but it appeared to me as though she struggled with some invisible object. She breathed heavily and chokingly, and sometimes faint cries escaped her. Then down she dropped on her knees again, and fell to sweeping back the leaves in the same violent way she had before scattered them. This done, she left the place, passing me so close that I had to shrink lest she should touch me. She went towards the house fleetly. I had to walk quickly to keep up with her. At times she almost ran. As I feared she would shut the door upon me if I were behind, and so prevent me from entering, for the other doors and the windows were bolted and closed, I ran by her and stood in the passage until she entered. It happened as I expected. She closed the door at once and bolted it precisely as she had found it. I followed her upstairs, saw her get into bed and lie as motionless as when I had first bent over her. I seated myself and watched her. I found nothing strange in her actions in the orchard. The mere fact of walking in her sleep was sufficient to render consistent any extraordinary behaviour. But I dreaded the consequence of her exposure to the night air. I could not doubt the wonderful providence that watched over the actions of the somnambulist; but supernatural as might be the regulation of her conduct, I knew that her flesh would still be susceptible of ill, and that there could be no provision made against the dangers of sickness and disease.