Some instinct took her along the very path that he had followed. Some fear put her to speed. Her heart that he had silenced on Bracken Down and that never again she had permitted him to see, carried her to him. She ran with her skirts taken in her left hand, gipsy again in her free and tireless action, gipsy when at the summit of the Ridge instinct directed her without hesitancy to the right, gipsy when in the blackness she almost ran upon him and a second time revealed him what he was to her. He cried, "Ima! Why are you here?" but carried his surprise no further. "Percival, what has come to thee?" "O Ima, leave me alone! leave me alone!" "Ah, let me help thee!" He cried, "None can--none can help me! Leave me! leave me!" Almost he struck her with his frantic arms that pressed her from him. She nothing cared, but caught them: "Ah, suffer me to help thee. Look how I have come to thee. I healed thee once." Her voice, and memories of her touch when he had lain sick, acted upon him. "Hold my hands, then. I must hold something. Hold them, hold them! O Ima, I am suffering, suffering!" "That is why I am come. Your hands burn in mine and tremble." "Kind Ima!" he said brokenly. "Kind Ima!" and put her hands to his face. She caught at her breath. There came a sudden lull in the storm as though the wind paused for words she tried to make. "Some one is running to us," Percival cried, and took his hands from her; stepped where approaching feet sounded and suddenly caught one that ran into his arms. "Who are you?" Then peered and then cried, "Hunt!" The figure that he held panted for breath. "I'm going to him--me lord," Hunt said, and laughed with the words. Percival went back a step and there came to Ima's ears his breathing, heavy as Hunt's that laboured from his run. "What do you mean?" Again the laugh. "I heard, me lord. Like as I heard that odd bit in the hall at the Manor years back and never forgot it that day to this." "How did you hear?" "I come to you. I come to you hiding, knowing you'd be kind as was the only one ever kind to me. Hid in your bedroom back of the screen, you not being there. Saw you come in and heard--" His sentence was broken in the savage hands with which Percival caught his collar and shook him. "What did you hear? What? What?" "Leave off of me! You're choking of me." "What did you hear?" "Y're Lord Burdon. Not him--not that--" He was swung from his feet by Percival's grasp. "What now? What now, Hunt?" "Leave off of me! Leave off! You're killing me."