Mr. Simmonds and the worthy parson took counsel together, and as Julia appeared in a high state of nervous excitement bordering on fever, they gave her a sleeping draught, placing her in the chimney corner in the Rector’s great arm-chair. There she slept for three hours, but when she awoke, again implored her father to take her home, as she felt so ill and did not wish to give her kind hosts trouble. There was no resisting this second appeal, so after a little delay in getting ready, they mounted their horses, and with a boy riding a pony and carrying a lantern in advance, they set off on their journey homeward. The snow lay thick on hill and tree, and they made but slow progress. The lantern gave but little light; it bobbed about hither and thither like an _ignis fatuus_, and finally the boy’s pony stumbled, and boy, pony, and lantern were buried in a deep snow-drift. The boy scrambled out quickly, but by the squire’s orders did not light his lantern again. They crossed the bridge and picked their uncertain way along the snow-covered path by the torrent’s brink. Suddenly the squire drew rein as a man rode quickly and silently past them, over the snow, going in the same direction as themselves. “How like Old Maggie,” said the squire half aloud; “and if I did not know to the contrary, I could have sworn that the rider was poor Benwell!” The squire supported Julia with his left arm as she rode by his side, cheering her as best he could. “Who was that, father?” she asked. “How strange he did not speak as he passed us by.” “It was indeed, my dear,” he rejoined; “but probably he was a stranger, and unaccustomed to our hearty West Country greetings. But see, he has stopped and dismounted.” They beheld him in the moonlight standing by his horse’s side, but for some reason the squire’s horse and his daughter’s both stopped of their own accord, while the boy’s pony wheeled round and dashed back towards Stoke. The strange horseman patted his steed’s neck, tightened the saddle-girth, and was about to remount, when another man suddenly bounded forward, with a drawn sword, and making a lunge at the unfortunate traveller, thrust him, from behind, right through the neck. Then the murderer searched the dying man, taking a large bundle of papers from the saddle-bags, and transferring them to his own pockets. Turning once more to his victim, who was not dead, but feebly struggling in the snow to regain his feet, he again stabbed him, this time clean through the heart. Then, with a malignant smile he turned away, strode to his own horse, which was tethered to a tree hard by, mounted, and in a trice galloped close past the spellbound onlookers. As he galloped silently by, the squire beheld, to his astonishment, the features of Wynne Clarge! Thus was re-enacted, in phantom-vision, the murder of Charles Benwell, as it took place twelve months before.