Then Clutterbuck whispered quickly: "What if his horse had stumbled? What if he is lying there at the roadside beneath the tree?" He tore himself away from the contemplation of the map. "The thing's magical!" he cried. "It has bewitched you, Steve, and by the Lord it has come near to bewitching me!" "I thought the horseman was yourself. Why don't you go?" said I, pointing to the map. Lieutenant Clutterbuck rose impatiently from his chair. "There must be an end of this. Once for all I will not go. There is no reason I should. There is reason why I should not. You do not know in what you are meddling. You are taken like a schoolboy by an old wife's tale of a lonely girl trapped in a net. You are too old for such follies." "I was too old a fortnight ago," I returned, "but, by the Lord, these last days I have grown young again--so young that----" I stopped suddenly. Not until this instant had the notion occurred to me, but it came now, it thrilled through me with a veritable shock. I leaned back in my chair and stared at Clutterbuck. He understood, for he in his turn stared at me. "The rider!" said he breathlessly, tapping the map with his forefinger, "the man whose face you did not see!" I nodded at him. "What if the face were mine?" said I. "You could never believe it." "I believe that I have even enough youth for that," I cried, and I bent over the map, trying again to fashion from its plain black and white my picture of the great high-road, climbing and winding through a country-side rich with all the colours of the summer. But it was only a map of lines and curves, nor could I any longer discover the horseman who spurred along it--though I had now a particular reason to wish for a view of his face,--or the wood into which he disappeared. "Well, has your cavalier galloped into the open yet?" asked Clutterbuck. He spoke with sarcasm, but the sarcasm was forced. It was but a cloak to cover and excuse the question. I shook my head. "No, and he will not," said Clutterbuck. "Is that so sure?" I asked. "What if the face were mine?" "You are serious!" he cried. "You would go a stranger and offer your unsought aid? It would be an impertinence." "Suppose life and death are in the balance, would they weigh impertinence?" "It might be _your_ life and _your_ death!" And as he spoke, it seemed to me that all my last seven years rose up in their shrouds and laughed at him.