"I shall never forget that afternoon. We had tea together in the verandah, overlooking the great expanse of the heathered, purple moors. And the thunder which had hung round us all day rolled nearer and nearer. The moors looked bruised and dark under the heavy sky. The long white road grew whiter and whiter. My sister left me to shut all the windows, and I lay in my long deck chair and looked at the road. "And as I looked the words came back to my mind. 'You will find me on the high road.' Lies! Lies! Ten years I had been seeking her. I should never find her. And far, far away on the empty highway I saw a woman coming. My heart beat suddenly, but I remembered that I had been deceived a hundred times, and this was no doubt but one more deception. I watched her draw nearer and nearer. She came lightly along towards the house under the livid sky with the heather on each side of her. She had a little knapsack on her shoulder. And as she drew near the breathless stillness before the storm was broken by a sheet of lightning and a clap of thunder. My sister rushed up and dragged the chairs farther back. Then her eye caught sight of the tall grey figure now close below us on the road. A few great drops fell. "Anna ran down to the gate and called to the woman to take shelter. She walked swiftly towards us, and then ran with my sister up the steps, just as the storm broke. "'Magnificent,' she said, easing her shoulder of the strap of her knapsack while her eyes followed the driving rain cloud. 'How kind of you to call me in. There is not another house within miles.' "She was a very beautiful woman of about thirty, with a small head and a clear-cut grave face. Her dark, parted hair had a little grey in it on the temples. She smoothed it with slender, capable, tanned hands. She had tea with us, my sister welcoming her as if she were her dearest friend. That was Anna all over. "The thunderstorm passed, but not the rain. It descended in sheets. "The stranger looked at it now and then, and at last rose and put out her hand for her knapsack. "'I must be going,' she said. "But Anna would not hear of it. There was not another house within miles. She insisted on her stopping the night. A room was got ready, and presently we all three sat down to a nondescript meal which poor Anna believed to be dinner.