Alec was looking out for the house gate in order to step forward and open it, when, to his utter surprise, he saw that the lady with haste passed it, and went on toward the hill.
He stopped with hand on the gate and called her.
"What is the matter ?" she asked, checking her walk.

"Are you ill?
What is it ?" He supposed that his strange voice would tell her all, but, although she was evidently puzzled, to his further astonishment, she did not realise that he was a stranger.
"Why do you speak like that ?" she asked.

And she talked on rapidly about some waggon she expected to find at the foot of the path.

She went on, in fact, as if unable to endure the loss of time; and he, thinking of the waggon and waggoner as a further point of safety for her, ran after.
In a minute they both came out of the lane on a small common.

Here were two horses tied under a tree and an open waggon with its shafts laid down.
"Call the man," she said.
To Alec's call a man came sleepily from a small barn that was near.