It was now midnight by the wrist-watch that Alick had given her, and she had still another hill to climb, steeper than the last if shorter. While she was going up the rain flogged her face as with whipcord, and, when she reached the top, the wind, sweeping across the low-lying lands from the sea, tore at her skirts as if it were trying to strip her naked. At one moment it brought her to her knees, and she thought she would never be able to rise to her feet again. It was very dark. She was feeling weak and helpless. Once more she remembered Stowell. He would be on his way to London now. She could see him (Alick had often painted such pictures) sitting in a brightly-lit first-class railway carriage, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee. At this thought her whole soul rose in revolt. Why was he there while she was here? She had never loved him; he had never loved her; they had both done wrong. But why for the same fault should there be such different punishment? People who went to churches and chapels talked of nature and God. They said God was good and He was the God of nature. It was a lie--a deception! If God was good He was not the God of nature. If He was the God of nature He was not good. Nature was cruel and pitiless. Only to a man was it kind. If you were a woman it had no mercy on you. It never forgot you; it never forgave you. Therefore a woman had a right to fight it, and when it threatened to destroy her happiness, and the happiness of those who loved her, she had a right to kill it. That was what she was doing now. Perhaps she had done it already. The heavy burden that had been lying so long under her heart had given no sign of life for hours. So much the better! That passage in her life must be dead and buried. Victor Stowell must be wiped out for ever. Then she could marry Alick Gell with a clean heart and conscience. Therefore, courage, courage! She would be a proud and happy woman yet--the _Sheean ny Feaynid_ had said so. Only the great thing was to get home before daybreak, so that nobody might see her until all was over. Somewhere in the dead and vacant dawn a pale, forlorn-looking woman, whom nobody could have known for Bessie Collister, was approaching the village of the glen. She had been eighteen hours on her journey, most of the time on her feet. Her fur-lined cloak was sodden and heavy. Her black hair had been torn from its knot and was hanging dank over her neck and shoulders. Her feet, in her dry boots, were cold and bleeding. A silk scarf which had been tied over her closely-fitting fur cap was dripping, and a little bag on her arms was wet through with all that was contained in it. She had expected to arrive before break of day, but nobody in the village was yet stirring. In the long street of whitewashed houses all the window blinds were still down and looking like closed eye-lids.