But all was not over. Two days after, a shadow intruded into the window-
pattern thrown on Rhoda Brook's floor by the afternoon sun. The woman
opened the door at once, almost breathlessly.

'Are you alone?' said Gertrude. She seemed to be no less harassed and
anxious than Brook herself.

'Yes,' said Rhoda.

'The place on my arm seems worse, and troubles me!' the young farmer's
wife went on. 'It is so mysterious! I do hope it will not be an
incurable wound. I have again been thinking of what they said about
Conjuror Trendle. I don't really believe in such men, but I should not
mind just visiting him, from curiosity--though on no account must my
husband know. Is it far to where he lives?'

'Yes--five miles,' said Rhoda backwardly. 'In the heart of Egdon.'

'Well, I should have to walk. Could not you go with me to show me the
way--say to-morrow afternoon?'

'O, not I--that is,' the milkwoman murmured, with a start of dismay.
Again the dread seized her that something to do with her fierce act in
the dream might be revealed, and her character in the eyes of the most
useful friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably.

Mrs. Lodge urged, and Rhoda finally assented, though with much misgiving.
Sad as the journey would be to her, she could not conscientiously stand
in the way of a possible remedy for her patron's strange affliction. It
was agreed that, to escape suspicion of their mystic intent, they should