She had been walking in a straggling village street, filled with small houses and everyday people. There had been no aim about this walk; she remembered stopping to talk to some persons by the way and looking in a little sweet-shop window at some large pink sweets marked four-a-penny. In the midst of all this triviality there had come a dreamy, far-off voice which said, “Follow me on to the end—follow me to the end.” Thereupon, looking onwards, she saw at the end of the street a narrow gateway. “I expect that’s the end,” she said idly, and walked on slowly, not thinking much about it. But when she came to the gate it led into a silent wood, and somehow the silence spoke so loudly that she was constrained to go in. A path led onward—a narrow, ragged path shaded with heavy trees. Onward she went, on, on, and ever as she went the path grew wilder, lonelier, and the great branching avenues and trees more grand. It was a hard and weary road to tread, and at last her feet began to grow very tired from the rough stones and the long way she had come. “Why am I going on?” she said. “The voice was so far away that I scarcely heard it; perhaps it was only a dream. Besides, whom am I following?” She walked on again. “I expect it’s father,” she said at last. “He’s the only thing worth following. If I could find him I should be happy.” As this grew into a conviction she gained hope and courage and pressed onward. But still the great gnarled forest grew in silence and in grandeur, and ever the path grew harder to tread. It seemed then as if she grew so very tired that one foot would scarcely move before the other, but still she went along, till at last in extreme weariness and pain she fell down under a large tree among a great heap of dying leaves. Then through one of the big black avenues of trees had come the figure from the picture, the man on whom she had looked with such curious interest when the print was first hung. It seemed as if from that point a good many roads branched off, all dark and rutted and gloomy. He glanced down some of the paths and bent his brows as if to try to pierce the darkness, and presently his eyes lighted on Deborah lying there. Now Deborah was very pleased to find this man. By some curious process which she did not understand he had long ago left the picture and passed, a real and substantial figure, into that other world of hers, so that in the midst of all this loneliness she quite felt she had found a friend. Instead of that he only looked at her very thoughtfully and coldly, and with a rather unfriendly surprise, and turned away. It was a very great blow to her, as naturally she could not realise that although she had always been looking at him he never before had looked at her. Just as he was turning away he turned back again. “Will you keep your father waiting?” he asked. But he said it as if it were an afterthought, and rather uncertainly. After that he disappeared, but where she could not tell.