had befallen their mistress. For all explanation they got these
words

"It is Michael Hurst. He was belated, and fell down the Raven's
Crag. Where does Eleanor, his wife, live?"

How Michael Hurst got to Yew Nook no one but Susan ever knew. They
thought he had dragged himself there, with some sore internal bruise
sapping away his minuted life. They could not have believed the
superhuman exertion which had first sought him out, and then dragged
him hither. Only Susan knew of that.

She gave him into the charge of her servants, and went out and
saddled her horse. Where the wind had drifted the snow on one side,
and the road was clear and bare, she rode, and rode fast; where the
soft, deceitful heaps were massed up, she dismounted and led her
steed, plunging in deep, with fierce energy, the pain at her heart
urging her onwards with a sharp, digging spur.

The gray, solemn, winter's noon was more night-like than the depth of
summer's night; dim-purple brooded the low skies over the white
earth, as Susan rode up to what had been Michael Hurst's abode while
living. It was a small farm-house carelessly kept outside,
slatternly tended within. The pretty Nelly Hebthwaite was pretty
still; her delicate face had never suffered from any long-enduring
feeling. If anything, its expression was that of plaintive sorrow;
but the soft, light hair had scarcely a tinge of gray; the wood-rose
tint of complexion yet remained, if not so brilliant as in youth; the
straight nose, the small mouth were untouched by time. Susan felt
the contrast even at that moment. She knew that her own skin was