The way was so familiar now to Hilda that she could have traversed it blindfold; and this was well for her, for in the dense shade of the beech-plantation it was now pitch dark.

The feathery branches brushed her face and caught the tendrils of her hair with their slender fingers.

There was something ghostly in their touch.

Hilda was not generally timid, but her nerves had been strung to a high pitch all day, and she had no longer full control of them.

She shivered, and bending her head low, called to the dog and hurried on.
Out from among the trees now, into the dim starlit glade; down the pine-strewn path, with the noise of falling water from out the beechwood at the right, and the ruined mill looming black before her.