The moonlight was brilliant over it all, save where the chestnut leaves cast a moving shade on the white pillars.
Susannah Chressham stepped on to the bridge and listened for a while to the endless ripple of the water falling over the stones below; then she again tore the letter across and across, and cast the fragments down into the stream.
Lifting her eyes she could see the yellow lights in the windows of Lyndwood House, and for the second time she shivered.
Slowly she retraced her way past the temple and reached the head of the steps.
Beneath her the moonlight fell in bars across the road, fell between the chestnut trunks and glimmered on the hard white drive.
Susannah Chressham stood motionless. A man's figure stepped out of the shadows into one of the patches of moonlight; he wore a long cloak flung over one shoulder and walked towards the house; the little clang of his sword against his spurs was distinct in the great stillness.
Susannah uttered an exclamation; at that he stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up.
"Rose," she said; "Rose—is that you?"
"It is I," he answered; and at the tone of his voice she winced, as if, in a moment, all her unreasonable dreads faced her in tangible form. She did not speak.
Her cousin came slowly up the steps to her.