A quiver went through the crouching form. He seemed to awake, his mind
returning as it were from a far distance. He turned his head, and Stella
saw that he was not blind. For his eyes took her in, for the moment
appraised her. Then with ungainly, tortoiselike movements, he arose.

"I am her excellency's servant," he said, in hollow, quavering accents.
"I live or die at her most gracious command."

It was abjectly spoken, yet she shuddered at the sound of his voice. Her
whole being revolted against holding any converse with the man. But she
forced herself to persist. Only this monstrous, half-bestial creature
could give her any detail of the awful thing that had happened in the
night. If Ralph were indeed dead, this man was the last who had seen
him in life.

With a strong effort she subdued her repugnance and addressed him. "I
want," she said, "to be guided to the place from which you say he fell.
I must see for myself."

He bent himself almost to the earth before her. "Let the gracious lady
follow her servant!" he said, and forthwith straightened himself and
hobbled away.

She followed him in utter silence, Peter walking at her right hand. Up
the steep goat-path which Dacre had so arrogantly ascended in the wake
of his halting guide they made their slow progress in dumb procession.
Stella moved as one rapt in some terrible dream. Again that drugged
feeling was upon her, that sense of being bound by a spell, and now she
knew that the spell was evil. Once or twice her brain stirred a little
when Peter offered his silent help, and she thanked him and accepted it