Though she could remember one or two uncomfortable days in her life, Lois Reddle could not recall one that bore any comparison with the twenty hours that followed her departure from Gallows Farm. She had been awakened by the woman at some unknown hour in the middle of the night, ordered to dress and come downstairs. The first order was easy to obey, for she had not taken off her clothes. When she came down into the passage she found the doctor waiting for her. He was wearing his heaviest overcoat, and carried a thick stick, and was testing a flash-lamp as she joined him. “Where are you taking me?” she asked, as he led her across the yard to the accompaniment of the savage chorus of the dogs. “You’ll find out in good time,” was the unpromising reply. “I don’t want you to ask questions or to speak until I tell you. After you leave this house you are to be silent--understand that?” They mounted the gentle slope of the downs and presently descended into a valley on the other side. Although the moon was obscured, there was sufficient light to enable her to pick her way across the rough ground and to dispense with the arm he offered her. Once they made a wide detour to avoid a marshy patch, and once he had to help her through a fence of hawthorn. Ahead of them was a dark line of trees, which was on the estate. He told her there were twelve hundred acres of land attached to the farm, only a small portion of which had been sub-let, and none of which was under cultivation. “It is poor land, anyway--most of this downland is. That is Gallows Wood,” he said, indicating the trees ahead. “The farm takes its name from the wood. There used to be a gallows on the crest of the hill years ago. Not scared, are you?” He chuckled when she answered “No.” After a while they struck a rough track which led into the heart of the copse, and now for the first time he produced the flash-lamp; a necessary precaution, for the path was overgrown and difficult to follow. Although her voice was steady and her attitude one of sublime confidence, Lois was inwardly quaking. There was something very ominous in this move. Yet it was not the fear of what would happen in the wood that frightened her. She guessed that the doctor was moving her from the farm because he expected the return of Michael Dorn. She dreaded only this; that Michael would search the house and be satisfied that she was not there. Would the doctor move the grey-haired woman too, she wondered? After ten minutes’ walk he stopped, and she thought he had lost the way, until the light of his lamp revealed a small stone cottage, standing back from the path and almost hidden by trees and undergrowth. This, then, was the new prison, she thought. “Hold this light,” he ordered, and she obeyed, whilst he tried key after key in the lock.