We drew abreast of the gesticulating woman on the coarse grass by the road. She was just a slip of an aged woman, and her hair was made of bits of grey string, and her eyes leapt hysterically out of a little, lined face. “Come, come!” she was screaming. “Come, come quick!” She smelt old, that woman. The car had scarcely stopped abreast of her when she turned and scampered away along a little lane between the tall, still trees. It was extraordinary, the way she ran, that little old woman! “Come, come quick!” Well, there was nothing to do but to follow. “The girl’s mad,” snarled Tarlyon, as he strode after the little old woman. But striding was no use, it was a running job, and it was a hot day. It was an untidy, tangled path up which she was leading us--and how quickly she ran, that little old woman, stumbling over her uncertain feet and frantic gestures, while we ploughed on behind her through the lush of the wood in August. It was an amazingly hot day; the Press for the last week or so had been full of surprise and congratulation as to the amazingly hot days we were having, and we had now an unrivalled opportunity of testing the veracity of the Press, but we would much rather have forgone it. At that moment, following that little old woman up that tangled path in Carmion Wood, George Tarlyon and I were probably the wettest men in England outside of a swimming-bath. “What the devil is it all about?” muttered Tarlyon, and was not soothed by my suggesting that I thought it was all part of his idea of a short cut to Malmanor--while the little old woman still screamed at us to come quick, quick. “Quick, quick....” And at her heels we burst out on to a clearing in the wood. The sun lay on that clearing like a carpet of gold. III Tarlyon and I stopped dead, and stared. We stared hard. But the little old woman, still screaming to us to follow, ran on ahead to the house. Yes, there was a house in that clearing, a little farmhouse. And the sun lay on it like a carpet of gold: that is how I saw it.... “Not our business,” muttered Tarlyon, and I heartily agreed that it wasn’t. We stood where we were, with our eyes glued on what we saw; and George Tarlyon dug his hands deep in his pockets. George Tarlyon always dug his hands deep in his pockets when he wanted frightfully to take them out.