years. The trees blown down by winter storms had lain year after year
where they fell; the dead undergrowth was choking the young saplings; and
some of the paths through the wood had practically disappeared.

The path from the allotments to the village passed at the back of the
wood. Branching off from it, an old path leading through the trees and
round the edge of the lake had once been frequently used as a short cut
from the village to the house, but was now badly grown up and indeed
superseded by the new drive from the western lodge, made some twenty
years before this date.

The labourer, Richard Stimson, was therefore vaguely surprised when he
turned the corner of the wood and reached the fork of the path, to see a
figure of a woman, on the old right-of-way, between him and the wood, for
which she seemed to be making.

It was not the figure of anyone he knew. It was a lady, apparently, in a
dark gown, and a small hat with a veil. The light was still good, and he
saw her clearly. He stopped indeed to watch her, puzzled to know what a
stranger could be doing in the park, and on that path at ten o'clock at
night. He was aware indeed that there were gay doings at Beechmark. He
had seen the illuminated garden and house from the upper park, and had
caught occasional gusts of music from the band to which no doubt the
quality were dancing. But the fact didn't seem to have much to do with
the person he was staring at.

And while he stared at her, she turned, and instantly perceived--he
thought--that she was observed. She paused a moment, and then made an
abrupt change of direction; running round the corner of the wood, she
reached the path along which he himself had just come and disappeared