bushes, should someone else appear and an alarm be raised.

She crossed the lawn swiftly, a white, ghostlike figure. In the middle
of the lawn she stopped short once as if in doubt what to do--as a
thought-reader pauses in his search for the mental scent again, ere he
rushes upon the object of his search with the certainty of instinct.

Presently she moved on, going directly towards a gate that opened out on
the cliff above the river. In Charley's day this gate had been often
used, for it gave upon four steep wooden steps leading to a narrow shelf
of rock below. From the edge of this cliff a rope-ladder dropped fifty
feet to the river. For years he had used this rope-ladder to get down to
his boat, and often, when they were first married, Kathleen used to come
and watch him descend, and sometimes, just at the very first, would
descend also. As he stole into the grounds this evening he had noticed,
however, that the rope-ladder was gone, and that new steps were being
built. He had also mechanically observed that the gate was open.

For an instant he watched her slowly moving towards the gate. At first
he did not realise the situation. Suddenly her danger flashed upon him.
Passing through the gateway, she must fall over the cliff.

Her life was in his hands.

He could rush forward swiftly and close the gate, then, raising an alarm,
get away before he was seen; or--he could escape now.

What had he to do with her? A weird, painful suggestion crept into his
brain: he was not responsible for her, and he was responsible for a woman
up there by the hospital, whose home was the valley of the Chaudiere!