At last they found themselves on a level, monotonous stretch of road. To the right, rising beyond a piece of rough, untilled ground, in the centre of which stood a grove of high trees, lay the straggling little town of Burcombe, and Mrs. Robinson looked doubtfully at the long, rain-flecked road before them. 'If we make our way across, and go through the grounds of Burcombe Abbey,' she said, indicating the grove of trees, 'we should get to the town far sooner than by going round this way. I think the place is let this summer, but if the storm becomes worse, we might take shelter in one of the out-buildings, and send some one for a carriage.' The first flash of lightning, the first real rush of rain, hastened their decision. Downing looked down with a feeling of exultation at his companion; her face was bent before the wind, but her voice was full of strength and a certain joyous cheer. Still, when the lightning lit up for a moment the lonely expanse of brown heath and rough ground about them, he felt her involuntary shudder, and she held closer to him. Soon they had passed through a broken palisade into the comparative shelter afforded by the high trees which surrounded and embowered the remains of what had once been a famous Cistercian monastery. It was good to be out of the storm, under one of the arched avenues which bordered a straight dark pool, covered with still duck-weed, stretching before them. As yet the rain had not had time to penetrate the canopy of green leaves shutting out the grey sky, but the path along which Downing was hurrying Penelope was already strewn with branches, some of dangerous size, and, had he not held her strongly, more than once she would have slipped and fallen. He saw that their wisest course would be to return to the open ground they had left, but the knowledge that some kind of shelter lay before them, if they could only reach it safely, made him keep the thought to himself. If--if indeed! For there came a sudden rending, as it were, of earth and water, an awful blinding flash; and then--in the interval between the lightning and the crash of thunder--one of the tall trees on the opposite side of the now rain-swept water fell with a heavy thud right across the pool, its green apex settling down but a few yards in front of the wayfarers. With a wholly instinctive gesture Downing flung both arms round his companion, and in the face of each the other read the unspoken, anguished question, 'Is this, then, to be the end, the solution, of our strange romance, of our difficult problem?' But Mrs. Robinson shook her head, with a sudden gesture signifying no surrender, and they pushed blindly on, treading on and over the wood and leaves carpeting the way before them.