On she went swiftly, still fancying at intervals she heard in front of her his whistle, and even his step on the hard, frozen path.

In her eager anxiety to overtake him, she felt neither the chilling air nor the fear of the night and the loneliness.

Dismay was behind her, and hope before her.

On and on she ran.

But when, with now failing breath, she reached the common, and saw it lie so bare and wide in the moonlight, with the little hut standing on its edge, like a ghastly lodge to nowhere, with gaping black holes for door and window, then, indeed, the horror of her deserted condition and the terrors of the night began to crush their way into her soul.