Aderhold, close to the door, was the first of the congregation to step from the church into the open air. It would seem that those near him held back, so as to let the fearful thing forth and out. The churchyard path stretched bare before him, between the yews to the mossed gate, and so forth from the immediate pale. There came as yet no challenge or molestation. He had looked for this; when all had risen and he with them, it had been with an inward bracing to meet at the door a writ of arrest. He looked to see the Hawthorn constable. But he was not at the door, or out upon the path, or at the gate.... The storm was at hand, with clouds heavy and dark as the yew trees and with a mutter of thunder. As he reached the village street, raindrops touched his face. Behind him the churchyard was astir with people, murmuring and dark. He wrapped his cloak about him, pulled his hat down against the rain, and faced homeward. Almost immediately, the church being at the village end, the cloud-shadowed country was about him. He walked rapidly for half a mile, then halted and stood in the wind and rain, trying to think it out. It occurred to him that he might turn back through the fields and passing the village come out on the highway and strike southward to the town and the castle. He knew not if his friend of the hawk were yet at the castle. And if he were not?—and if he were?... There was that at the Oak Grange which must be considered. His book—there in the quiet room behind the cupboard’s oaken door, all his writing lying there—that which he was trying to put down. It turned him decisively from the town and the bare chance of reaching help. His book was his lover and playmate and child. He put himself into motion again and went on toward the Grange, beneath the tempestuous sky, through the wind and the rain.... When he came within Hawthorn Forest there arrived a sudden lull. The oaks stood still around him, the raindrops fringing branch and twig and unfolding tufts of velvet leaves. Overhead the clouds drove apart, there came a gleam of intensest blue. As he moved through the forest it took on an ineffable beauty. When he came to the edge and to the stream murmuring over its pebbly strand there was a great rainbow. He crossed the footbridge and went on by the fairy oak.