What should she do? where should she go? what was lying on the ground under the beech tree, on which not so long ago, Hugh Morice had cut their initials with his hunting-knife? She was sure there was something--what?
She would have to go and see. The thought of doing so was hideous--but the idea of remaining in ignorance was not to be borne. Knowledge must be gained at any price; she would have to know. She waited. Perhaps something would happen to tell her; to render it unnecessary that she should go upon that gruesome errand. Perhaps--perhaps he would groan again? If he only would! it would be the gladdest sound she had ever heard.
But he would not--or he did not.
Yet all was still--that awful stillness.
It was no use her playing the coward--putting it off. She would have to go--she must go. She would never know unless she did. The sooner she went, the sooner it would be done.
So she returned along the footpath towards the beech tree. In the moonlight the way was plain enough. Yet she went stumbling along it as she had never stumbled even in the darkness--uncertain upon her feet; reeling from side to side; starting at shadows; stopping half-a-dozen times in as many yards, fearful of she knew not what.
What was that? A sound? No, nothing. Only a trick of her imagination, which was filled with such fantastic imaginings, such shapes and sounds of horror.
She came to the end of the path. Before her was the open space; the favourite nook where she had first met Hugh Morice, which she had come to regard almost as a sanctuary. In front was the saucer-shaped break in the ground which she had found offered such luxurious ease. What was lying in it now?
Nothing? Or--was that something? Well under the shadow of the beech tree, where the moonlight scarcely reached? almost in the darkness, so that at a first glance it was difficult to see? She stood, leaning a little forward, and looked--long, intently. As she looked her heart seemed to become gradually constricted; she became conscious of actual pain--acute, lancinating.
Something was there. A figure--of a man--in light-coloured clothes. He lay on the ground, so far as she could judge from where she stood, a little on his right side, with his hands thrown over his head as if asleep--fast asleep. The recumbent figure had for her an unescapable fascination. She stared and stared, as though its stillness had in it some strange quality.