She turned unquestioningly. And laughing softly almost as children
do, the stalking shadows of a twilight wood behind them--they trod
in silence back to the house. They said good-bye at the gate, and
Lawford started once more for home. He walked slowly, conscious
of an almost intolerable weariness, as if his strength had
suddenly been wrested away from him. And at some distance beyond
the top of the hill he sat down on the bank beside a nettled
ditch, and with his book pressed down upon the wayside grass
struck a match, and holding it low in the scented, windless air
turned slowly the cockled leaf.

Few of them were alike except for the dinginess of the print and
the sinister smudge of the portraits. All were sewn roughly
together into a mould-stained, marbled cover. He lit a second
match, and as he did so glanced as if inquiringly over his
shoulder. And a score or so of pages before the end he came at
last upon the name he was seeking, and turned the page.

It was a likeness even more striking in its crudeness of ink and
line and paper than the most finished of portraits could have
been. It repelled, and yet it fascinated him. He had not for a
moment doubted Herbert's calm conviction. And yet as he stooped
in the grass, closely scrutinising the blurred obscure features,
he felt the faintest surprise not so much at the significant
resemblance but at his own composure, his own steady, unflinching
confrontation with this sinister and intangible adversary. The
match burned down to his fingers. It hissed faintly in the grass.

He stuffed the book into his pocket, and stared into the pale
dial of his watch. It was a few minutes after eleven. Midnight,