watch. 'Let me mount Bertha, I engage to deliver a letter at The
Crossways to-night.'

Lady Dunstane half inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she
sought, but said: 'Will you find your way?'

He spoke of three hours of daylight and a moon to rise. 'She has often
pointed out to me from your ridges where The Crossways lies, about three
miles from the Downs, near a village named Storling, on the road to
Brasted.

The house has a small plantation of firs behind it, and a bit of river--
rare for Sussex--to the right. An old straggling red brick house at
Crossways, a stone's throw from a fingerpost on a square of green: roads
to Brasted, London, Wickford, Riddlehurst. I shall find it. Write what
you have to say, my lady, and confide it to me. She shall have it to-
night, if she's where you suppose. I 'll go, with your permission, and
take a look at the mare. Sussex roads are heavy in this damp weather,
and the frost coming on won't improve them for a tired beast. We haven't
our rails laid down there yet.'

'You make me admit some virtues in the practical,' said Lady Dunstane;
and had the poor fellow vollied forth a tale of the everlastingness of
his passion for Diana, it would have touched her far less than his exact
memory of Diana's description of her loved birthplace.

She wrote:

'I trust my messenger to tell you how I hang on you. I see my ship
making for the rocks. You break your Emma's heart. It will be the