The abruptness of her own question was evidently atoned for by some necessity the nature of which he had not yet entirely grasped.

Yet a knowledge, gleaned too late from all the occurrences of the evening, leaped up within him to anticipate her tidings.
"Winifred has gone out since dark.

Whether she is alone or not I don't know, but she has gone to the mountain.

She means to climb it to-night because they have told her that--that----" His lady-love stopped.

Voice and language seemed alike to fail her when she essayed to tell him, and he, awed at the thought of hearing such sacred words from her lips, awed to think that the sword of this fanaticism had come so near as to strike the pure young girl who was so dear to them both, took her pause as if it had told him everything.
"How do you know ?" His words were brief and stern.
She was walking on, he thought merely from excitement.