Fortunately, there was no mistaking the high road, and it was still comparatively early. If she put her best foot foremost she might reasonably expect to reach Chilcombe before dark. She had soon left the houses of Glazebrook behind, and was passing between hedges and fields. For the first mile and a half all went well; she was a little tired, but rather pleased with her own pluck. According to Sicilian customs, which are almost eastern in their guardianship of signorinas, it was an unheard-of thing for a young lady in her position to take a country walk without an escort. The remembrance of the beggars and footpads that lurked about Sicilian roads gave her uneasy twinges, and though she had been told of the comparative safety of British highways, her heart beat considerably when she passed anybody, and she scurried along in a flutter lest some ill-intentioned person should stop and speak to her. The farther she went from the town the fewer people were on the road, and for quite half a mile she had met nobody at all. She had been going steadily down a steep hill, and at the bottom she stepped suddenly into a great belt of fog that lay like a white wall in front of her. It was as if she had passed into a country of dreams. She could scarcely see the hedges, and all round was a dense mass of mist, clammy and cold and difficult to breathe. It was silent, too, for no sound seemed to travel through it, not a bird twittered, and no animal stirred in the fields. Carmel felt as utterly alone as if she were on the surface of the moon. All the familiar objects of the landscape were blotted out. It was still light, but this white thick mist was worse than darkness. She stamped along for the sake of hearing her own footsteps. She wished she had a dog with her. She kept to the left-hand side of the road, and followed the hedge, hoping that the fog was only in the valley, and that she would soon pass out of it. On and on it stretched, however, till she must have been walking through it for quite twenty minutes. Then she began to grow uneasy. There was a border of grass under the hedge bank wider than she remembered noticing on the road, and the suspicion assailed her that all unknowingly she must have turned down a side lane and have lost her way. She went forward now with doubting footsteps. Where was the path leading her? If she could only find some cottage, she could inquire. But there was no human habitation, nothing but the endless hedges and an occasional gate into a field. What was that in front of her? She stopped, and drew back with a cry of fear. Across her track gleamed water. She had almost stepped into it. Whether it was stream, pond, or river the thick mist did not reveal, but it certainly barred her footpath. She shivered, and turning round, walked back in the direction from which she had come, hoping to regain the high road.