She went on walking, and wondered where she was, and whether there was any end to this long, empty lane. It wasn’t dark any longer. The clouds had rifted and the moon shone bright and cold. The over-arching trees were left behind. There was only an endless low hedge on either side, broken here and there by some sentinel holly. Shock, fatigue, and the moonlight made the whole scene unreal. The moon plays tricks with us, touching the commonest scene with enchantment-or horror-according to what has tinged our thoughts. It played now upon Judy’s senses and caught them away into a haunted world full of shadows of evil. The most dreadful part of it was that she was alone there. There were no people any more, no habitable shelter.

When she heard the car behind her it seemed like something which breaks violently in upon a dream. She was shocked awake, and uncertain what to do. If it was Lona- how could it be Lona? The car was ditched and she could never have got it out. The word “alone” slipped into her mind-Lona could never have got it out alone. Supposing someone had come by and helped her-

She shrank back into the hedge, and saw twin lights come sliding down the lane.

Her mind was violently wrenched. She had the torch, and she could signal to the car. If she signalled, and it was Lona- if she didn’t signal, and let help go by… In a moment it would be too late. She must make up her mind-now-

But it was made up for her. Afterwards she didn’t know whether she had tried to move her hand-to find the switch of the torch. She only knew that she had no power to do so. She felt the cold metal against her palm, but her fingers had no power to move. She stood frozen in the shadow of the hedge and saw the car go by.

It was the car she had driven and left in the ditch. Lona was driving it at a slow, careful pace. She went by. The glow of the lights held Judy’s horrified gaze. The red tail-light was gone. She watched the glow until it was out of sight. Then she turned back along the way by which she had come.

Frank Abbott, driving Dr. Daly’s car, had turned off the Ledlington road where Judy had turned.

“She won’t dare risk the villages. This goes up to St. Agnes’ Heath. If I were in her shoes I’d take it, get within walking distance of Coulton or Ledstowe, and shed the car. She’s had forty minutes’ start, and I shouldn’t think she would reckon on getting more than that.”

It was up on the heath that they saw the lights of a car coming towards them and stopped it. It contained two friendly Americans who were quite willing to admit that they had helped a lady out of a ditch a couple of miles back.

‘She was sure glad to see us. Might have been there all night. It’s a lonely bit of country… Oh, sure, she was alone…”

They were rather bewildered by the speed at which they were passed and left behind.

March said, “Do you know the place-the fork they mentioned?”

“Yes. I should have thought she’d bear right, but they said she took the left-hand fork-” He broke off suddenly. “What’s that?”

It was Judy, standing out in the middle of the lane and flashing the torch. Dr. Daly would have been horrified at the suddenness with which the brakes came on.

Lona Day drove on until she came to what she was looking for, the right-hand turn which would take her back to the Coulton road. She had to get back to it because she was going to Coulton, but she had not felt able to risk taking the right-hand fork under the eyes of the helpful young men who had got the car out of the ditch for her.

She was quite sure now that Judy had ditched it on purpose. Every time she thought of it she felt a burning surprise and anger. That the girl should have dared, and having dared, that she should have brought it off! She ought to have known that she hadn’t a chance. She ought at this moment to be dead with a bullet in her brain.

She wasn’t dead. She was alive, with a tattling tale to tell. Never mind, Lona would get away in spite of her. She hadn’t killed four men, to be beaten by a tattling girl. She had made her plans. Her new name, her new place in the world, were waiting for her. Once she had slipped into them, the police might whistle but they wouldn’t find her. In a way it was gratifying that they should know how clever she had been, and how she had diddled everyone for three years.

She went on slowly and carefully past the turning until she came to the narrow lane on the left which ran across the fields to Ledham. If she left the car just beyond it, the police would think she had gone that way. She drew up by the side of the road and walked quickly back to the right-hand turn. A mile to the Coulton road, and three miles on-farther than she cared to walk, but not too far for safety. When she was in sight of the Coulton road she would make her adjustments. A pity about her fur coat, but it would be the first thing in the description they were sure to circulate.

Twenty minutes later she was stripping it off and pushing it well down inside a hollow tree. Her hat followed it. Just a bit of luck that the moon had come out, for it wouldn’t have been at all easy to find the tree in the dark. Seven-no eight months since they had picnicked here and pushed the sandwich papers down out of sight. She felt cold without her coat, though the coat and skirt she was wearing was a thick one. Thick and new-no one at Pilgrim’s Rest had ever seen it. The moonlight robbed it of its colour, but in the day it was a good shade of sapphire which took the green out of her eyes and made them look blue.

She found a comb in her bag and proceeded to deal with her hair, taking it up straight, away from face and neck and ears, before slipping on the dark wig which changed her quite beyond belief. Demure, smooth waves coming down to a roll at the back. Not nearly so ornamental as the chestnut curls, but oh, so respectable.

The woman who came out of the wood on to the Coulton road was no longer Lona Day. A short three miles lay between her and safety.

Frank Abbott was taking tea with Miss Silver. There was a cosy fire. A comfortable twilight veiled the Soul’s Awakening and the Monarch of the Glen. The rows of silver photograph frames which enshrined past clients and their babies caught a reflected glow from the firelight.

Miss Silver, neat and smiling, dispensed tea from a small Victorian teapot with a strawberry on the lid. Her tea-set, of the same date, displayed a pattern of moss roses. Since Emma never broke anything, it remained as she had inherited it from her great aunt, Louisa Bushell, that formidable pioneer of women’s rights in an age which saw no reason why they should have any, since a gentleman could always be relied on to give a lady his seat. The tea-set lacked one cup of its original twelve, this having been broken by Miss Bushell’s vicar, who set it down on its saucer with a slam at the climax of his argument that the original misdemeanour of Eve entailed continuous subjection upon her daughters. There were, however, a few occasions when Miss Silver entertained so large a party as to be reminded of this painful incident.

Frank now looked gloomily at her across the cups and said,

“She’s done the Macbeth act-made herself air.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Not quite an accurate statement, I think. She has merely become someone else. You will remember I said all along that there was a very clever, unscrupulous mind at work. I feel convinced from what Miss Day said to Judy that she had very carefully prepared a line of retreat.”

Frank continued to look gloomy.

“Well, we can’t pick up any trace of her in Coulton, Ledstow, or Ledham. No one answering to her description boarded a train at any of these places, and unless she got a lift in a car she couldn’t have got any farther afield. It was too late for her to catch a bus.”