meet at the edge of the heath at the corner of a plantation which was
visible from the spot where they now stood.



CHAPTER V--CONJUROR TRENDLE


By the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this
inquiry. But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid
fascination at times in becoming instrumental in throwing such possible
light on her own character as would reveal her to be something greater in
the occult world than she had ever herself suspected.

She started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and half-
an-hour's brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern extension of the
Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation was. A slight figure,
cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda recognized, almost with a
shudder, that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm in a sling.

They hardly spoke to each other, and immediately set out on their climb
into the interior of this solemn country, which stood high above the rich
alluvial soil they had left half-an-hour before. It was a long walk;
thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only early
afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over the hills of the heath--not
improbably the same heath which had witnessed the agony of the Wessex
King Ina, presented to after-ages as Lear. Gertrude Lodge talked most,
Rhoda replying with monosyllabic preoccupation. She had a strange
dislike to walking on the side of her companion where hung the afflicted
arm, moving round to the other when inadvertently near it. Much heather