[Pg 61]

Her bewildered brain could go no further in the reasoning process; but something, she knew not what, urged her on to reach Yorke Towers that night.

Something! Was it fate?

Slowly and hesitatingly, trembling like an aspen, Rosamond threw the cloak about her shoulders and drew the hood over her head; then, with wavering, uncertain steps, her feet clad only in thin silk stockings and dainty slippers, she made her way over to the window, which stood open and led out upon the lawn. She stepped forth into the cool, calm night. The soft air fanned her cheeks and made her brain grow clearer.

She glanced swiftly, with eyes full of terror, up at the house—her own home, from which she was flying as from a pestilence, turning her back upon her best, her only friends, in the mad delirium of her clouded intellect.

Drawing the cloak closely about her, she darted away like a bird in the direction of the rear entrance to the grounds of The Oaks.

Just outside the windows of the room where she had been lying, to all appearance dead, there was a tiny arbor[Pg 62] covered with honeysuckle all in bloom. Within the arbor the dark figure of a man had been sitting for the last hour or two, buried in meditation and cigar-smoke. Now, as the slight form wrapped in the long, dark cloak stepped softly from the window, and the gleaming lamp-light from within the room streamed full across her face, he started to his feet with a stifled exclamation. He tossed his half-smoked cigar into the shrubbery near, and turning upon his heel, followed the flying figure with long, hurried strides.

[Pg 62]

She never dreamed that she was pursued. If she had, she would have fallen dead at his feet, for life was burning with but a feeble flame within her heart. Poor Rosamond could not endure much more. But, blissfully unconscious, she made her way straight on with surprising celerity for one who had lain for hours in a comatose condition—on, on, until at last the rear entrance was safely gained. She opened the little gate with swift, eager hands; and the moment consumed in this action gave her pursuer time to reach her side, only he kept hidden from view, and she never for a moment suspected that she was not alone. Over and over she kept whispering to herself, as her clouded brain revolved the situation:

“I must get away—anywhere, anywhere! I must not stay 

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