there, in the twilight I opened and read it. It was from Mr. Chiffinch,
bidding me come to town at once on King's business.

"I must ride to town," I said. "Cousin Tom, will you order my horse for
me; and another for this man? I do not know when I shall be back again."

And, as I said these words, I saw my Cousin Dorothy's face looking at me
from the dusk of the inner hall, and knew what was in her mind; and that
it was the matter of the tall old woman in her room.




CHAPTER V


The storm was broken before we could set out, and the ride so far as
Hoddesdon was such as I shall never forget; for the wind was violent
against us; and it was pitchy dark before we came even to Puckeridge;
the thunder was as if great guns were shot off, or bags of marbles
dashed on an oak floor overhead; and the countryside was as light as day
under the flashes, so that we could see the trees and their shadows,
and, I think, sometimes the green colour of them too. We wore, all three
of us--the courier, I and my man James--horse-men's cloaks, but these
were saturated within half an hour. We had no fear of highwaymen, even
had we not been armed, for the artillery of heaven had long ago driven
all other within doors.

The hardest part of the journey was that I knew, no more than the
dead--indeed not so much--why it was that Mr. Chiffinch had sent for me.