But she had reckoned without her host—that is to say, in ignorance of her own uncertainty as to the nearest way to the aforesaid Laurel Walk, for it was in a part of the grounds she seldom frequented, as it led straight from the church to a side-entrance of the big house, nowadays rarely used. Betty made two or three wrong détours—not to be wondered at, for, once in among the shrubs again, it was really almost dark; and when at last she came out at the point she was in search of she began to repent what now seemed to her foolhardiness, for the thickly bordered path in question did look from her end of its long, narrow course extremely eerie and forbidding.
“I can’t risk losing my way in those shrubberies again,” she thought. “I remember now that there is a side-path a little farther along, which will take me by a short cut out into the open again. I’ll run along as fast as I can till I come to it.”
But alas! for poor Betty. There was more than one side-path, and the first she tried, after pursuing it for some yards, only landed her more confusingly than ever in the thickest part of the plantation.
“This isn’t the right one,” she thought. “I must go back again, and rather than risk remaining hereabouts I’ll go straight to the church.”
Running just here was not an easy matter. The nervous fears which were beginning, in spite of herself, to overcome her, were once or twice dispersed for a moment by a bang against some obtruding tree or branch.
“Oh, how silly I have been!” thought Betty. “But here’s the opening into the Laurel Walk. Yes, I’d better make straight for the church.”
Something—she could not have said what—made her stop for a moment, as she turned into the path of uncanny reputation. She started—what was that? A rustle of some kind in the direction of the house, a falling branch or leaf, no doubt—all was so still! She turned towards the churchyard, walking fast, her heart beating quickly enough already, when—oh, horrors!—she heard all too distinctly the sound of a tread behind her. For half an instant she stopped in vain hope that she might have been mistaken.
It stopped.
“Shall I have strength to get out of this horrible place?” thought Betty, for she felt her limbs already all but failing her, from her now excessive trembling. But desperation gives courage. She hurried on again; again, too, the footsteps behind became audible.
“Oh,” thought Betty, “if it tries to overtake me, I shall die. If I can but keep up for half a minute more, I shall be at the little gate into the churchyard, if only—oh, if only it’s not padlocked!”